Mon 29 Dec 2014
A Western Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE PLUNDERERS (1960).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[13] Comments
THE PLUNDERERS. Allied Artists, 1960. Jeff Chandler, John Saxon, Dolores Hart, Marsha Hunt, Jay C. Flippen. Director: Joseph Pevney.
The Plunderers appeared on the scene at the tail end of a great decade for Westerns when the genre was beginning to show moderate signs of fatigue. It wasn’t necessarily that Westerns in the early 1960s were necessarily bad films or sub-par Westerns, not at all. It’s just that after the 1950s – a truly golden era for the Western – there wasn’t much new, in terms of plot or structure, under the sun.
Not yet anyway.
The genre, of course, would be reinvigorated soon enough, thanks in large part to (love ‘em or hate ‘em) Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, and Monte Hellman, auteurs willing to take Westerns into cinematic realms more daring, violent, or, downright quirkier, than those great late 1950s Ranown cycle films of Budd Boetticher and the first films of Howard Hawks’s Rio Bravo trilogy. These directors who came to the fore in the 1960s built on the groundwork laid before them by directors such as William Castle, Andre De Toth, and Jacques Tourneur, among others.
The TV Western in the early 1960s, of course, was another story altogether. There were still plenty to choose from on the air; many of them were quite good and stand the test of time.
The Plunderers is best understood as a product of its historical context, coming as it did between the end of the 1950s Western and the dawn of the revisionist and Spaghetti Westerns. Directed by Joseph Pevney (Star Trek), The Plunderers, which feels more like an above average TV episode more than a feature film, stars Jeff Chandler as Sam Christy, a rancher wracked by doubt and self-loathing. Severely wounded during the Civil War, Sam was left with only one good arm and a chip on his shoulder the size of the West Texas.
So it’s perhaps no surprise that when four marauding youngsters roll into Trail City and proceed to ravage the place, Sam’s natural response is to revert his gaze and pretend it’s not of his business. That, of course changes, when Sam realizes how much the townsfolk, particularly the lovely Ellie Walters (Dolores Hart), need him to take a stand.
And take a stand he does. With a knife and with a gun, Sam decides it’s time to fight back against the four hooligans. Among the criminals is, Rondo (John Saxon), a cunning Mexican with some historical baggage on his mind. He has his eye, and occasionally his hands, on Ellie, including in one particularly brutal attempted sexual assault scene.
Despite the semi-tired plot of townsfolk banding together to face down a threat, The Plunderers does have one great thing going for it. And that’s Jeff Chandler, whose acting skills are on full display here. Without much seeming effort, Chandler is able to vividly express the emotions of a man haunted by wartime trauma. He’s a man alone, but one who desperately wants human connection. He’s a fighter afraid to fight, and a lover afraid to love.
When all is said and done, when Sam Christy decides to fight back, he’s not afraid to fight dirty. In an otherwise slow, but steady, paced movie, that’s when the action really begins. The Plunderers may not be the best Western out there, but it’s an solid film with very little working against it, apart from the fact that the cinematography is overall forgettable and the natural scenery all but not existent. But it’s nevertheless a good little morality play about courage and manhood.
December 30th, 2014 at 9:18 am
It is difficult to realize that with his long list of movie credits, in a wide variety of roles, that Jeff Chandler was only 41 when he died. That was in 1961, from complications after surgery.
He came a long way from playing Mr. Boynton, the shy biology teacher on the 1940s radio version of OUR MISS BROOKS. Of course he was also the radio voice of Michael Shayne, a voice you could not mistake for anyone else’s.
December 30th, 2014 at 12:24 pm
Indeed. Listening to him as Boynton makes it VERY difficult to watch him as the he-man figure he represents in all his tough-guy movies. Its a wrench! Difficult adjustment to make, for me.
December 30th, 2014 at 12:26 pm
His voice is perfect for Boynton, but his appearance is of a brute! I just can’t reconcile the two that easily..and then of course there’s the Johnny Quest angle
December 30th, 2014 at 5:33 pm
I was always a Chandler fan and enjoyed in 10 SECONDS TO HELL when he got to play the bad guy for a change. There was always an intensity to any part he played and for some reason I always had him in mind as the actor who should have played Travis McGee.
It’s funny though, the voice that was perfect for Mr. Boynton had a face attached no one would have accepted on screen.
Anyway, we all know Mr. Boynton was Superman’s dad and not Jeff Chandler.
December 30th, 2014 at 6:09 pm
There aren’t enough votes for the list to mean a lot, but this website ranks Jeff Chandler’s movies from best to worst:
http://www.ranker.com/list/jeff-chandler-movies-and-films-and-filmography/reference
and while I can’t vouch for how accurate the information is, this webpage has a lot of details about Chandler’s life, career, and death:
http://queenofextraneousinformation.blogspot.com/2012/06/whatever-happened-to-actor-jeff.html
December 30th, 2014 at 6:10 pm
And Jeff Chandler as Travis McGee? In some ways I like the idea, and in others, I don’t. I’ll have to think some more about it.
December 30th, 2014 at 7:16 pm
Steve,
I have just taken a look at the biographical page and while it all seems reasonable I have these corrections:
1. Broken Arrow was a critical, as well as commercial success, for all concerned, and especially for James Stewart and Debra Paget.
2. In Sign of the Pagan he did not play Attila the Hun. That part went to Jack Palance, who stole the picture in every possible way. Chandler played a white-bread centurion type.
3. It is Thunder in the Sun, not Delivery …
Otherwise, she provided fair information and good entertainment.
December 30th, 2014 at 7:49 pm
I believe Chandler comes — as did Chuck Connors — from Brooklyn. There’s also a specific high school which was able to boast an astonishing number of future Hollywood stars, as its alumni.
I think — but am not sure — that it is Erasmus Hall High.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Hall_High_School#Notable_alumni
Would welcome a correction if I am mis-recalling the name.
Anyway, Jeff Chandler turned in some fun radio appearances outside of ‘Miss Brooks’ — I’ve heard him on ‘Suspense’ and ‘Escape’ and he was marvelous in roles like an escaped ex-con, etc.
December 30th, 2014 at 7:54 pm
Chandler did two movies (one with Lana Turner I think and one with Esther Williams) where he played a sort of boat bum type, he had the ex football player build and for some reason I always saw McGee as a wary character and Chandler always seemed on screen to be wary of the world around him.
He wasn’t my only choice, I also liked Charlton Heston and Sterling Hayden (the artist who tried to syndicate a McGee comic strip used Chuck Connors as his model)but Chandler is the one I’m most likely to see and hear reading the books.
It’s one of those personal things you can’t always articulate.
January 1st, 2015 at 3:04 am
I found one of the great Chandler radio episodes. It was on ‘Suspense’ and was titled: ‘The Steel River Prison Break’. Really raw.
January 1st, 2015 at 1:07 pm
Jeff Chandler had a voice that was perfect for radio. I wish I had the words to describe it. Intimate and personal when he was narrating, nuanced and compelling in dialogue. Radio acting is a real knack, and he had it, but luckily he didn’t have to rely on radio for his entire career.
January 1st, 2015 at 7:42 pm
Well said. Y’know–thinking on this recently–I always pictured Mr. Boynton as resembling actor George Brent. That’s who the science teacher’s voice paired with in my mind.
January 2nd, 2015 at 1:53 pm
Regarding Jeff Chandler’s narration voice, as it were, I forgot to mention that THE PLUNDERERS opens with Chandler (although not really his character) narrating, in broad detail, what is to take place in the film