Support Your Local Sheriff!

On his way to Australia, a stranger (James Garner) cleans up a wild-west mining town and woos the mayor’s daughter.

In Support Your Local Sheriff!, is a fun western comedy thanks to James Garner’s laconic performance.

With a combination of lazy repartee and improbable skills with a six-shooter, Garner tames the town and takes down the villainous Danby gang. Walter Brennan plays the Danby patriarch. Bruce Dern is Brennan’s dim-witted son. Jack Elam is the town yokel who winds up as Garner’s deputy. Henry Morgan plays the town’s mayor.

One of the film’s running gags revolves around the local brothel being named Madame Orr’s. This should give you an idea of the script’s level of wit. And yet, Garner is impossible to dislike. He ambles through the film as though self-aware; as bemused by the script’s forced humor as we are. His chemistry with Elam and Morgan elevates their performances. The script may be lazy, but through sheer charisma, James Garner makes this movie work.

But he can’t help Joan Hackett. She falls face first into a street full of mud. She gets stuck up a tree. She sets her own ass on fire making dinner. Was the script trying to parody the Hawksian woman? A self-aware version of the Hawks archetype could have been a lot of fun, but Hackett’s character is little-more than a clown, dragging down an otherwise good film.