''Support Your Local Sheriff!'' (also known as ''The Sheriff'') is a 1969 American
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
film directed by
Burt Kennedy
Burton Raphael Kennedy (September 3, 1922 – February 15, 2001) was an American screenwriter and director known mainly for directing Westerns. Budd Boetticher called him "the best Western writer ever."
Biography
Kennedy was born in 1922 i ...
and starring
James Garner
James Garner (born James Scott Bumgarner; April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) was an American actor. He played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, including '' The Great Escape'' (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy Chayefsky's ''The Ameri ...
,
Joan Hackett
Joan Ann Hackett (March 1, 1934 – October 8, 1983) was an American actress of film, stage, and television. She starred in the 1967 western ''Will Penny''. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the Golde ...
, and
Walter Brennan
Walter Andrew Brennan (July 25, 1894 – September 21, 1974) was an American actor and singer. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in '' Come and Get It'' (1936), ''Kentucky'' (1938), and '' The Westerner ...
. The supporting cast features
Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan (born Harry Bratsberg; April 10, 1915 – December 7, 2011) was an American actor and director whose television and film career spanned six decades. Morgan's major roles included Pete Porter in both ''December Bride'' (1954–1959 ...
,
Jack Elam
William Scott "Jack" Elam (November 13, 1920 – October 20, 2003) was an American film and television actor best known for his numerous roles as villains in Western films and, later in his career, comedies (sometimes spoofing his villainou ...
,
Bruce Dern
Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an American actor. He has often played supporting villainous characters of unstable natures. He has received several accolades, including the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Silver B ...
, and
Chubby Johnson
Charles Randolph "Chubby" Johnson (August 13, 1903 – October 31, 1974) was an American film and television supporting character actor with a genial demeanor and warm, country-accented voice.
Early years
Johnson was the son of entertaine ...
. The picture was distributed by
United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...
and produced by
William Bowers
William Bowers (January 17, 1916 – March 27, 1987) was an American reporter, playwright, and screenwriter. He worked as a reporter in Long Beach, California and for ''Life'' magazine, and specialized in writing comedy-westerns. He also turn ...
(who also wrote the screenplay) and
Bill Finnegan.
The film is a parody of a common Western trope: the selfless, rugged stranger who tames a lawless frontier town. Its title was derived from a popular 1960s campaign slogan: "Support Your Local Police".
Plot
The
Old West
The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
town of Calendar in the
Colorado Territory
The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado.
The territory was organized in the w ...
springs up almost overnight when clumsy, hotheaded Prudy Perkins (Hackett) notices gold in a freshly dug grave during a funeral. Her father, bumbling farmer Olly (Morgan), becomes the first mayor of the new settlement, but soon he and the other elected councilmen (
Henry Jones and
Walter Burke
Walter Lawrence Burke (August 25, 1908 – August 4, 1984) was an American character actor of stage, film, and television whose career in entertainment spanned over a half century. Although he was a native of New York, Burke's Irish ancest ...
) find themselves and the townspeople at the mercy of the corrupt Danby family, who force the prospectors to pay them a
toll
Toll may refer to:
Transportation
* Toll (fee) a fee charged for the use of a road or waterway
** Road pricing, the modern practice of charging for road use
** Road toll (historic), the historic practice of charging for road use
** Shadow toll, ...
for using the only road in or out of Calendar. The town has no
sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...
, as all the men are busy searching for gold, and the few who have taken the job have been run out of town or killed.
Jason McCullough (Garner), a confident and exceptionally skilled
gunfighter
Gunfighters, also called gunslingers (), or in the 19th and early 20th centuries gunmen, were individuals in the American Old West who gained a reputation of being dangerous with a gun and participated in gunfights and shootouts. Today, the t ...
planning to emigrate to
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, sees Joe Danby (Dern) kill a man over a card game in the town's
saloon. Needing money after Calendar's
high prices leave him broke, McCullough takes the job of sheriff, impressing the mayor and council with his uncanny marksmanship. He breaks up a street brawl and becomes attracted to Prudy, despite her attempts to avoid him due to the embarrassing circumstances under which they first met. McCullough arrests Joe and tosses him in the town's unfinished jail, which lacks bars for the cell doors and windows; he uses several clever tricks to manipulate Joe and keep him from escaping.
McCullough acquires a reluctant deputy in scruffy stable boy Jake (Elam), previously known as the "
town character". Joe's arrest infuriates his father, Pa Danby (Brennan), who is not accustomed to his family being challenged. After McCullough disarms and humiliates him in a failed intimidation attempt, Pa sends in a string of hired guns to kill him, all of whom the sheriff easily defeats. Meanwhile, McCullough enlists Jake's help in an unsuccessful attempt to prospect for gold, and spars romantically with Prudy. The Danbys try to tear the bars off the jail window with their horses but get pulled off their mounts instead before Jake chases them away with a shotgun.
A fed-up Pa enlists all of his relatives to ride into town and free his son. When the news reaches McCullough, he initially tells Prudy he intends to leave, but when she expresses her sincere approval of this sensible idea, he declares it to be cowardly and announces he is staying instead. Mayor Perkins persuades the townsfolk to vote against helping the sheriff despite Prudy trying to convince them otherwise. Thus, the Danby clan rides in faced only by McCullough, Jake, and Prudy. After a lengthy but unproductive gunfight, McCullough bluffs his way to victory using Joe as a hostage and the old
cannon
A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...
mounted in the center of town. As the Danbys are marched off to jail, the supposedly unloaded cannon fires, smashing the local
brothel
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...
and scattering both the prostitutes and the councilmen they were servicing.
McCullough and Prudy get engaged. In a closing
monologue
In theatre, a monologue (from el, μονόλογος, from μόνος ''mónos'', "alone, solitary" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes a ...
, Jake breaks the film's
fourth wall
The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...
and directly informs the audience that after his wedding, McCollough went on to a long and prosperous career as the first governor of Colorado after it became a state, never making it to Australia (although he reads about it a lot), while Jake takes his place as sheriff of Calendar and becomes "one of the most beloved characters in Western folklore".
Cast
*
James Garner
James Garner (born James Scott Bumgarner; April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) was an American actor. He played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, including '' The Great Escape'' (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy Chayefsky's ''The Ameri ...
as Jason McCullough
*
Joan Hackett
Joan Ann Hackett (March 1, 1934 – October 8, 1983) was an American actress of film, stage, and television. She starred in the 1967 western ''Will Penny''. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the Golde ...
as Prudy Perkins
*
Walter Brennan
Walter Andrew Brennan (July 25, 1894 – September 21, 1974) was an American actor and singer. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in '' Come and Get It'' (1936), ''Kentucky'' (1938), and '' The Westerner ...
as Pa Danby
*
Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan (born Harry Bratsberg; April 10, 1915 – December 7, 2011) was an American actor and director whose television and film career spanned six decades. Morgan's major roles included Pete Porter in both ''December Bride'' (1954–1959 ...
as Olly Perkins
*
Jack Elam
William Scott "Jack" Elam (November 13, 1920 – October 20, 2003) was an American film and television actor best known for his numerous roles as villains in Western films and, later in his career, comedies (sometimes spoofing his villainou ...
as Jake
*
Henry Jones as Henry Jackson
*
Bruce Dern
Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an American actor. He has often played supporting villainous characters of unstable natures. He has received several accolades, including the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Silver B ...
as Joe Danby
*
Willis Bouchey
Willis Ben Bouchey (May 24, 1907 – September 27, 1977) was an American character actor who appeared in almost 150 films and television shows. He was born in Vernon, Michigan, but raised by his mother and stepfather in Washington state.
...
as Thomas Devery
*
Kathleen Freeman
Kathleen Freeman (February 17, 1923August 23, 2001) was an American actress. In a career that spanned more than 50 years, she portrayed acerbic maids, secretaries, teachers, busybodies, nurses, and battle-axe neighbors and relatives, almost in ...
as Mrs. Danvers
*
Walter Burke
Walter Lawrence Burke (August 25, 1908 – August 4, 1984) was an American character actor of stage, film, and television whose career in entertainment spanned over a half century. Although he was a native of New York, Burke's Irish ancest ...
as Fred Johnson
*
Chubby Johnson
Charles Randolph "Chubby" Johnson (August 13, 1903 – October 31, 1974) was an American film and television supporting character actor with a genial demeanor and warm, country-accented voice.
Early years
Johnson was the son of entertaine ...
as Brady
*
Gene Evans
Eugene Barton Evans (July 11, 1922 – April 1, 1998) was an American actor who appeared in numerous television series, television films, and feature films between 1947 and 1989.
Background
Evans was born in Holbrook, Arizona and raised i ...
as Tom Danby
*
Dick Peabody
Richard Peabody (April 6, 1925 – December 27, 1999) was an American actor best known for his role as six-foot-six Pfc. Littlejohn on the 1960s series ''Combat!''. Peabody worked in television, movies, radio, and print. He was tall and typecast ...
as Luke Danby
*
Dick Haynes
Dick Haynes (January 9, 1911 – November 24, 1980) was an American actor and radio personality. He had minor roles in films and television that began with an uncredited appearance as a reporter in the 1954 MGM film, '' Tennessee Champ''. His ...
as Bartender
Production
''Support Your Local Sheriff!'' was the first producing effort by Garner and his Cherokee production company, completed on a "shoestring" budget of $750,000.
Early in pre-production,
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
threatened a lawsuit as the studio contended that the first scene was "lifted" from their musical ''
Paint Your Wagon'' (1969) where a similar gold mine discovery is featured. Eventually, Garner was able to show where the original screenplay had found its source material, and the lawsuit went away.
[Nixon, Rob]
"Articles" ''Support Your Local Sheriff!''
''Turner Classic Movies''. Retrieved: November 17, 2022
Reception
''Support Your Local Sheriff'' was considered a "bomb", as it did not do any business in its first week, with United Artists clamoring to pull the film. Garner challenged them to match a $10,000 stake to keep the film in one theatre for a week. The result was impressive as "word of mouth" increased attendance until crowds were around the theatre by the end of the engagement.
''Support Your Local Sheriff'' was the 20th-most popular film at the U.S. box office in 1969.
''Support Your Local Sheriff'' received mixed critical reviews. It holds a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on sixteen reviews.
Follow-up
In 1971, director Burt Kennedy reteamed with James Garner, Harry Morgan, and Jack Elam to make another Western comedy, ''
Support Your Local Gunfighter'', with different characters, but a similar comedic tone. Many of the original supporting cast reappeared, as well.
See also
*
List of American films of 1969
This is a list of American films released in 1969.
''Midnight Cowboy'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
__TOC__
A–B
C–G
H–M
N–S
T–Z
Documentaries and shorts
See also
* 1969 in the United States
External links
...
References
Notes
Citations
Further reading
* Garner, James and John Winokur. ''The Garner Files: A Memoir''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. .
External links
*
*
*
*
James Garner Interview on the ''Charlie Rose Show''
{{Burt Kennedy
1969 films
1960s Western (genre) comedy films
American Western (genre) comedy films
American parody films
1960s parody films
Films directed by Burt Kennedy
Films shot in Los Angeles
Films set in Colorado
1969 comedy films
1960s English-language films
1960s American films