Sat 21 Mar 2015
A Western Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE DEADLY TRACKERS (1973).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[16] Comments
THE DEADLY TRACKERS. Warner Brothers, 1973. Richard Harris, Rod Taylor, Al Lettieri, Neville Brand, William Smith. Based on a story by Samuel Fuller. Directors: Barry Shear & Samuel Fuller, the latter uncredited.
The first three minutes of The Deadly Trackers are about as annoying as you can possibly get. In what appears to be an attempt to be artistic and edgy, the movie begins with an unnecessary voice-over dialogue and a frame by frame introduction to the main character, Sean Kilpatrick (Richard Harris), a pacifist sheriff in a small border town.
It’s enough to make you want to turn the whole thing off.
I’m guess I am glad I didn’t. While I’d never go so far to say The Deadly Trackers is a particularly good or an effective Western, it does have something worthwhile going for it. That would be Al Lettieri (The Getaway, Mr. Majestyk), a veteran crime film actor who died at the early age of 47 in 1975. Lettieri portrays Gutierrez, a Mexican lawman, who is just about the remotely likable character in this gritty, sweaty, revenge thriller.
The plot is simple enough. After Kilpatrick (Harris) witnesses his wife and son killed by the cruel Frank Brand (Rod Taylor), he gives up his pacifist ways (a little too easily, it should be noted) and sets out to seek Brand and his three henchmen, Schoolboy (William Smith), Choo Choo (a tired looking Neville Brand), and Jacob (Paul Benjamin). None of these men are particularly interesting villains save Choo Choo, a man with part of a railroad track for a hand.
After crossing the border, Kilpatrick encounters Mexican lawman Gutierrez and engages in a series of cat and mouse chases with him. By the time the whole thing’s over, Kilpatrick has turned into a carbon copy of the man who killed his family. In the matter of less than two hours running time, he’s become a truly despicable character, so much so that you’re not sad when [SPOILER ALERT] Gutierrez shoots the lout in the back.
And therein lies the problem with The Deadly Trackers. There’s no one really to root for. It’s mainly just a bunch of dirty, sickly looking men doing horrible things to one another.
That may be a necessary ingredient for a certain type of Western, but it’s not sufficient to make this anything other than a historical curiosity: an American Spaghetti Western morality play about how blood lust corrupts, a story that attempts to be more profound than it actually is.
The movie does have some decent cinematography, but it would have been a whole lot better had the film been told from Gutierrez’s point of view. He seems like the only character in this film that you wouldn’t be terrified to be around for more than a minute or two.
March 21st, 2015 at 10:10 pm
Jon stayed with this movie longer than I did. I watched with him until Harris’s character reached the border and crossed over into Mexico, which is when I decided I’d seen enough.
I’d have liked to seen Al Lettieri in this film, though. His character sounds as though he might have been interesting. He took a relatively minor role in Steve McQueen’s THE GETAWAY and made me look up his name on IMDb make sure I wouldn’t forget it.
Re: the opening of the film. It was unusual, to say the least. I thought for a short while that something was wrong with the DVD we were watching,
March 21st, 2015 at 11:50 pm
Whenever a movie star in an action film is identifies himself as a pacifist, then surely cynicism is in play at a fairly obvious level. And almost as surely when the action and violence does come, it will be pointless and perfunctory.
March 22nd, 2015 at 12:04 am
At the conclusion of Angel And The Bad Man, John Wayne throws his gun away and becomes a ‘friend’ — but he is John Wayne and dangerous. Not at all cynical, a logical character development within the context of the story.
March 22nd, 2015 at 12:24 am
Your points are well taken, Barry. As I said, I didn’t finish the movie, but I could see the direction it was going, and I didn’t want to go along.
There is a long story behind story behind the making of this film, and the best summary isperhp on its AFI page.
http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=54936
It would probably be best if I didn’t quote the whole thing, but it begins:
“The working titles of this film were Riata and Kill Brand . The film’s end credits include the credit “based on the story ‘Riata’ by Samuel Fuller†and the following statement: “Filmed entirely on location in Mexico with the cooperation of Churubusco Studios Mexico City D.F.†The first four minutes of the picture are presented as a series of still photographs with superimposed credits and voice-over narration describing the town of Santa Rosa and its sheriff. Offscreen dialogue also is heard over the photographs. In two early scenes, star Richard Harris refers to the character played by Kelly Jean Peters as “Kathleen,†but calls her “Katherine†in subsequent scenes.
“As noted in various contemporary sources, in addition to the screen story, Fuller wrote a screenplay for the film and was the picture’s original director. According to a HR news item, in Jan 1971, Sassafrass Productions, a newly formed independent company, hired Fuller to direct his script, starting in Mexico that spring. In his autobiography, Fuller made no mention of Sassafrass but claims that early on, M-G-M had expressed interest in the story, which he had begun writing in the mid-1960s. By Sep 1972, Warner Bros. had acquired the property, and as noted in a DV news item, Barry Kulik was hired as producer. In the same item, Nina Von Pallandt was announced as Harris’ probable co-star. Fuller noted in his autobiography that he rejected rock singer Jim Morrison’s request to be cast in the lead and that singer-actor Mick Jagger was considered for the lead heavy role of “Brand.” Fuller also stated that he wanted Juliet Berto for the female lead, but Kulik instead hired another French actress, Juliette Mills.”
It sounds to me as though aspirations for the original film were very high but were scaled down eventually quite drastically.
March 22nd, 2015 at 12:36 am
PS. There was a time when if asked what my favorite western movie was, I would say ANGEL AND THE BADMAN. I’ve not seen the movie in a long time, so I’m not sure if that statement is still true today, but I suspect it is.
Incidentally, and I don’t know how this happened, but just a couple of days ago I learned that there was a remake of the movie made for TV in 2009, called ANGEL AND THE BAD MAN. It starred Lou Diamond Phillips and Deborah Kara Unger, who may be good, but no matter what, they’re not THAT good.
PPS. It was made for the Hallmark Channel.
March 22nd, 2015 at 12:47 am
John Wayne and Gail Russell made quite a team. I remember reading about the remake for television but I had seen a bit of the Red River remake and was no longer in the market.
March 22nd, 2015 at 5:06 am
Wayne tried to be Russell’s guardian angel, getting her a role in Seven Men From Now after alcoholism had made her unemployable.
March 22nd, 2015 at 8:52 am
“American Spaghetti Western” nails it quite well. Lettieri and Taylor are pretty good in casting that reverses the usual expectation of Lettieri playing the bad guy and Taylor playing a sympathetic character.
March 22nd, 2015 at 9:11 am
Steve’s comment: “I’d have liked to seen Al Lettieri in this film, though. His character sounds as though he might have been interesting. He took a relatively minor role in Steve McQueen’s THE GETAWAY and made me look up his name on IMDb make sure I wouldn’t forget it.” My take: Lettieri had a prominent role in THE GETAWAY, as McQueen’s nemesis, but it’s a character that could have been played as a standard tough-guy heavy — Lettieri invests it with personality, which may have been Steve’s point. Should also mention THE GODFATHER — the scene with Lettieri (as Virgil the Turk), Sterling Hayden, and Al Pacino was the pivotal scene in the film. For me, the actor who did the most with “a relatively minor role” in THE GETAWAY was Richard Bright as the thief who steals the suitcase with the money in the train station (and another GODFATHER connection, Bright played Al Neri, Michael Corleone’s bodyguard in GODFATHER I, II, and III.
March 22nd, 2015 at 9:52 am
I see from my notes that I saw this film in 2010 and gave it a mediocre rating. Brian Garfield in his book, WESTERN FILMS, really slams it calling it “…a tawdry, unforgivably brutal, obscenely moronic bloodbath.” He also says “…this irredeemable trash…” and “…a deadly bore.”
Even Sam Fuller disliked it and demanded that his name be removed from the credits.
March 22nd, 2015 at 10:55 am
I still can’t quite get my head around the idea of Rod Taylor as the villain. He was always the two-fisted hero, but with some intelligence and a twinkle in his eye. He was totally convincing in THE TIME MACHINE; able to convince you that he might be able to construct the craft of the title, but also able to sock the Morlocks in the jaw. I had assumed that his career had started to bottom out at this point, but his IMDB listing shows that he kept working fairly regularly for quite a few years afterwards (although like a lot of film stars from that period, he pretty much moved into television). I still remember him from the ‘Hitchhiker’ episode of TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED.
March 22nd, 2015 at 3:08 pm
Brian Garfield was being nice to this disgusting piece of — well, won’t use that language here. The performances, save for Lettieri, are uniformly bad, all over the top, and like the film, pretentious as hell.
A pacifist lawman in the Old West. Yeah, that happened. A pacifist lawman period … not likely even if Dallas most famous Sheriff never carried a gun.
Harris goes from pacifist to psychotic at record speed, and what the hell Rod Taylor (usually a favorite of mine) was doing here I have no idea — it damn well wasn’t acting.
Don’t watch this, even for Lettieri. It is simply bad on all counts. The acting, the script, the direction, the cinematography, even the score stinks. If there wasn’t a better film on the back of the disc this one would have been melted over the stove top.
As Barry said, the hanging up the gun thing can be done well in a Western, and has been numerous times SHANE is nothing but a film about a man trying to escape his violent past. In this though Richard Harris is so criminally stupid throughout the beginning of the film that the townspeople should have let the outlaws go and hanged him, he then goes from pacifist to rabid dog without passing GO.
He turns into a psychotic, but unlike Gregory Peck in the similarly themed THE BRAVADOS there is no redemption for him in revenge or realization. About midway through the film I was hoping Lettieri would just shoot him.
Obviously someone saw the WILD BUNCH one too many times, a shame they didn’t understand it.
The pendulum swung too far in this period from the wholesome westerns of the past to the post Wild Bunch ultra violence, and while pieces of both were founded in reality neither was actually realistic. Brian Garfield’s own novel THE LAST HARD MAN was made into another overly violent, though much better, film with Charlton Heston and James Coburn, including a violent rape that was so discomforting it just pushed audiences away rather than make them root for the bad guys demise.
The truth varied. Bill the Kid, despite his many friends and their propaganda, was a rabid dog who had to be put down like one; Frank and Jessie James were racist war criminals; but Bill Doolin’s closest friend was the lawman Frank Tilghman who pursued him and even his victims liked him; and, Black Bart was a poet who never harmed a soul in his hold ups. Emmett Dalton and Al Jennings both ended up as technical advisors and producers in Hollywood (not necessarily a step up from outlaw).
The Real West was neither back nor white, but movies always have to have it one way or another. About the only realistic Westerns ever made were MONTE WALSH and BITE THE BULLET, and even they had to throw in some violence, and everyone was much cleaner than the real thing.
We have to remember that 99% of Westerns are not about the Old West but about people with our sensibilities and concepts in an Old West setting. Thus in the thirties you got thirties values, in the fifties the values of that time, and in the sixties the confusion and violence in society then and on infinitum.
If they are still making Westerns five hundred years from now they will be about people with the values of that society, and not about the West.
Two of Wayne’s biggest hits were made with Russell, ANGEL, and WAKE OF THE RED WITCH (so big for him he named his production company BATJAC from it), and despite her drinking she seems to have been liked by the people who worked with her. I knew James Brown (the Lt. on RIN TIN TIN and O’Hara the crooked cop on DALLAS), my mom’s old boyfriend, and he said he enjoyed working with her in OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY where she played Cornelia Otis Skinner.
A tragedy, though I think her career as a leading lady had run its course before the bottle got her. Actresses like Stanwyck, Davis, Crawford, Loy, Taylor, Loren, and Hayward who extended their careers well past ingénue as leading ladies were the rarity, not the rule.
March 22nd, 2015 at 6:03 pm
speaking of THE WILD BUNCH, the opening scene in THE DEADLY TRACKERS is a low rent imitation of the opening sequence/credits in that much, much better film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St16P31BURU
March 23rd, 2015 at 6:53 am
Had Russell been willing and able, she might’ve prospered in the “50’s scifi/horrors. Her spooky, other worldly presence a Roger Corman dream date.
March 26th, 2021 at 11:58 pm
Poor Gail Russell. One of tinsel-town’s saddest stories.
‘Deadly Trackers’: a disturbing film in many ways. The plot is unsavory to begin with ==and then, as noted above –pacing is rushed. The whole thing feels cheap and calculating; viewer reactions are ‘extracted’ from one rather than gently ‘drawn’. It is not a relaxing or entertaining film. You’re given no time to reflect on the jarring action sequences and the teeth -gnashing, spittle-flecked dialogue doesn’t help. It’s just an overly-mean film lacking any control. There’s too many nerve-jarring Richard Harris films like this, and it’s a shame. For too many years, this firebrand was too continually soused to care how he presented himself to audiences. Far cry from his sensitive ‘Camelot’. Oh well. Rather than this western, I would prefer ‘The Last Word’ which has intelligent action and more delicate characterization. Harris was perfectly capable of sensitive performances is he would just put down the bottle!
++Al Lettieri. This visceral action star almost salvages the film. Lettieri oozed screen presence. Invariably a heavy with his menacing build and hound-dog face, he is given a surprising turn here as a paunchy, world-weary, almost kindly Mexican sheriff who plays well off Richard Harris’ maniacally vengeance-bent marshal. It could have all been a lot better.
Rod Taylor in this too? Ouff. Come on Rod. Stop slumming!
February 10th, 2022 at 12:55 am
I usually finish a movie I start watching and didn’t have the problems other commentators have made. I thought there were many fine emotional moments and scenes in the film that challenge your morality. The ending was very disturbing as it definitely went against my expectations.
I also enjoyed the locations and the real grittiness of the film. There have much better treatments of this story. Compare this movie to Yhe Bravados starring Gregory Peck which is a much more powerful and well executed movie.