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''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 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 (film), The Great Escape'' (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy ...
, Joan Hackett, 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 villaino ...
,
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 ...
, 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 stu ...
and produced by William Bowers (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 ...
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) find themselves and the townspeople at the mercy of the corrupt Danby family, who force the prospectors to pay them a 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 country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
, 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 p ...
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 (film), The Great Escape'' (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy ...
as Jason McCullough * Joan Hackett 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 villaino ...
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 ...
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 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 as Tom Danby * Dick Peabody 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 ''Support Your Local Gunfighter'' is a 1971 American comic Western film directed by Burt Kennedy and starring James Garner and Suzanne Pleshette. The screenplay was written by James Edward Grant. The picture shares many cast and crew members ...
'', 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 19 ...


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