The McMasters (1970) review

THE MCMASTERS 1970

Burl Ives (Neal McMasters), Brock Peters (Benjie), David Carradine (White Feather), Nancy Kwan (Robin Lightfoot), Jack Palance (Kolby), John Carradine (Preacher), L.Q. Jones (Russel), R.G. Armstrong (Watson), Dane Clark (Spencer), Alan Vint (Hank)

Directed by Alf Kjellin

The Short Version: Middling, melodrama-heavy bigot western has a great cast and an unusually complex main protagonist but fumbles when trying to fuse exposition with exploitation. Director Kjellin repeatedly pulls back the reigns, rarely letting his cinematic mare roam the range. A Swedish filmmaker mostly resigned to television work in the US, THE McMASTERS feels like a rougher version of an episode of THE WALTONS (of which Kjellin directed 10). In the 70s these types of westerns thrived on gratuitous violence and Kjellin focuses more on the threat of brutality or its aftermath instead of actually showing it. Other than the language and a rape scene, the tone is so light, one expects to hear Burl Ives whip out his banjo and sing a folks song or make a gallon of Luzianne Iced Tea. Jack Palance and L.Q. Jones are appropriately despicable, uttering the obligatory epithets with conviction; yet their comeuppance is another area where the director denies his audience a satisfyingly emotional payoff. Not terrible, but not terribly memorable either; in the end, THE MCMASTERS is little more than McMediocre.

In 1865, Benjie "Benjamin" McMasters, a soldier in the Union Army, returns to the southern town of his former owner and adoptive father, Neal McMasters. Naturally, nobody expected him to come back after a 4 year sojourn, nor is everybody happy to see Benjie, especially while wearing a Union Army uniform. Shortly after his arrival he receives a less than friendly reception from Kolby, a one-armed Reb who is never without a mouth full of chewing tobacco. Much to Benjie's surprise, Neal offers him a contract giving him half of everything he owns. Enraged that Neal has given a black man ownership of property, Kolby and his crew ensure Neal will have no help working the land. Solving the problem upon finding Indian cattle thieves on his property, Benjie gives them jobs and they give him a Squaw as a gift. Meanwhile, Kolby and his gang sabotage the McMaster homestead, plot to find and destroy Benjie's contract, and kill off the McMasters clan once and for all.

Shot in Santa Fe, New Mexico this American western financed by a British company is a strange brew of traditional and defeatist westerns featuring Brock Peters as an unlikely hero battling bigots in a Collum County Civil War. Director Kjellin, a Swedish filmmaker who worked primarily in television during his US career, made an efficient, if unmemorable movie. Linear in execution and bland when it needs to have some flavor, the filmmakers tease the audience with a surprising nude scene, racially charged language and some moderate, bloodless violence (during the last half). Bearing a PG rating (still GP at the time), the exploitation crowd will likely be disappointed if expecting something excessively trashy.... and THE McMASTERS has great potential for it.

The biggest coup for the Dimitri de Grunewald production is Brock Peters (TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD [1962]), a fine actor headlining a movie specifically tailored for him. At first glance, he would seem an odd choice for a picture like this since the film's promotional materials gives the impression of sleazier prospects than what you actually get. More of an acting showcase than an action movie (think John Ford's SERGEANT RUTLEDGE [1960] starring Woody Strode), it would be a couple more years before Fred Williamson would come along and turn out the first black action western with THE LEGEND OF NIGGER CHARLEY in 1972. 

 
Often lumped in with the blaxploitation genre, THE McMASTERS (1970) doesn't technically fit the criteria of those movies. Brock is the sole black actor in a film with no lingering exploitation; and essaying a performance that is more John Wayne than Jim Brown. There's plenty of exploitable elements, but the director just skims the surface of them. Harold Jacob Smith's talky script foreshadows a lot but delivers very little. Even the action is restrained. The finale, for instance, is unique in that the cavalry that comes to the rescue is a Redskin militia--only the shootout is extremely brief. Again, this is more of a drama than anything else. In that area it works even if it gets a little too stagy at times.

Benjie (Peters) is a complicated character; at times stoic and others a guy with issues in dealing with the opposite sex. The war is over and he comes back to a home nobody expected him to return to. A southern town. A town where both his blue uniform and black skin is a detriment to some. Apparently Benjie didn't see too many women during his military tenure. Upon meeting Robin Lightfoot (played by Nancy Kwan), White Feather's sister, Benjie is smitten. White Feather, out of courtesy, simply gives her to him; and like any budding romance, Benjie takes her off into a field, throws her down and rapes her. It's okay, though, because he's conflicted afterward. She doesn't seem to mind, and the two slowly evolve from a master/slave relationship to marriage.

The complexity of the Benjie character lies mainly in his interactions with Robin... the rape scene in particular. I read this in two ways--either he's consumed by his libido from a years long lack of a woman; or the casualness by which she is handed over simply overwhelms him to the point that he is now in the position of the slavemaster as opposed to the slave. Benjie, formerly a slave, but raised like a son by Neal, feels immediate regret over the way he took her. Robin treats it like she has went through the ordeal before (and she will go through it again later on), returns with Benjie to his home, and takes on the role of servant and sperm dispenser--later to marry and open up an entirely new can of worms with Kolby and company.

Going back to the rape scene, it's shot from a distance with only the audible brush of the wind and intercut with closeups of Nancy Kwan being violated; the most powerful sequence in the picture in terms of editing and photography. After this, everything is the usual routine with little else standing out from a technical standpoint. However, Brock Peters, as operatic as he is at times, isn't the only thespian bright spot in an otherwise meandering movie....

Like Vesuvius, Jack Palance heats and stews till finally erupting in a magma flow of overacting that consumes the last half of the film--giving a clear vision as to the sort of sleaze-lovin' patronage THE McMASTERS could (and maybe should) have catered to. Palance's tobacco-chewin', epithet spewin' Kolby is the scene-stealer here; it's just too bad it takes him till the last 30 minutes to really start upstaging everybody with his brand of honey glazed ham. He had just burned up the screen as a Quantrill-like psychopath in what is possibly his most unhinged acting ever in the brutalist western, THE DESPERADOS (1969); and he channels that manic acting style here as well.

Much like Benjie who, for a time, wears his Union uniform, the one-armed Kolby is never seen out of his Confederate outfit. Palance strikes a memorable chord even if he doesn't get to do a lot till the end except spit nasty tobacco, sneer nastily at Peters, and grab at his stump as if it had been a buffalo soldier (the Union Army's negro cavalry as they were referred) that took it.

 
Burl Ives gets top billing but it's Brock Peters' movie all the way. It's odd seeing the banjo-playing Sam the Snowman from the classic 1964 Rankin-Bass special RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER in a western; even more odd is knowing he played Robert Ryan's nemesis in the 1959 snow western classic, DAY OF THE OUTLAW. The 70s-80s spokesman for Luzianne Tea is on the right side of the law this time out and, compared to some of his co-stars, is reserved in the acting department. An award winning actor and singer with many hits under his belt, Burl Ives is a totem for family-friendly entertainment--sucking any lowbrow elements out of the picture whenever he's onscreen.

Eurasian Nancy Kwan is an odd casting choice as the metaphorical doormat, Robin Lightfoot. She has little to say and do but be used and abused and bear her bottom and front in a tastefully done, but awkward nude scene. Raped twice--first by Benjie and again by four assailants including perennial western star L.Q. Jones and Alan Vint (MACON COUNTY LINE [1974]). Kwan was a sex symbol back in the 60s with such films as THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG (1960) and FLOWER DRUM SONG (1961). She had an action role in the Bruce Lee choreographed THE WRECKING CREW (1969) with Dean Martin and Sharon Tate. If you grew up in the 1980s you will most likely remember Nancy Kwan as the spokeswoman for Pearl Cream ("Have you ever wondered why it's so hard to tell how old most Oriental women are?").

The strange casting continues with David Carradine as White Feather, the thievin' Injun who is befriended by Benjie. Consistently referring to Benjie as a "white man" because he desires ownership of things, his thinking is contradictory since he gifts his sister to Benjie as some sort of trade for giving him a job. Ostensibly a slave, they later get married; which only riles the Rebs even more. Carradine's portrayal of White Feather is about as convincing an Indian as Nancy Kwan is. Two years later Carradine would go from living in Teepees to Shaolin as Caine in KUNG FU (1972-1975). 

THE McMASTERS marks the second time David Carradine featured in a movie with his father, John Carradine--who plays the Collum County preacher. Father and son don't share a scene together, however.

Black composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (THOMASINE AND BUSHROD [1974]) performed his first theatrical score with THE McMASTERS (1970). It's not a great score, but some of the cues reach sonic heights that you wish the film did elsewhere and with more frequency. 

The budget was reported to be in the 2 million range; which is surprising considering all the interior sets are extremely cramped or mostly seen from the same angle. DP Lester Shorr, a veteran of numerous western programs, counters the claustrophobic settings with some evocative, wide open expanse of the New Mexico locales. These shots are one area where the film shows kinship with the traditional western; those films often displayed the majesty of nature's beauty in stark contrast to the dusty, filthy, apocalyptic landscape of the defeatist west where life was cheap, women were raped and murdered instead of rescued, and gunmen had facial hair down to their kneecaps.

According to sources of the time, THE McMASTERS was released in two versions in some territories--one approved by the star, the writer and the producer; and another version disowned by them with the blessing of the distributor. The latter was said to have upwards of eight minutes removed including Robin's rape by Benjie. The version on this French DVD appears to be the complete release--or at least the one approved by cast and crew members.

 
An average western at best, THE McMASTERS (1970) is yet another sagebrush saga with an intriguing premise half-heartedly realized. Brock Peters, Jack Palance and L.Q. are its greatest strengths and yet they, like everything else, are hindered in some way. Yet to be available in a legit digital format in America, the star power alone warrants a wider audience. There are better 70s westerns, but few with as peculiar a premise, bungled as it is, than THE McMASTERS.

This review is representative of the French Zylo R2 PAL DVD. Specs and Extras: anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1. No extras. running time: 1:25:49 (PAL speed).

The Last Rebel (1971) review

THE LAST REBEL 1971

Joe Namath (Burnside Hollis), Jack Elam (Matt Graves), Woody Strode (Duncan), Ty Hardin (Sheriff), Victoria George (Pearl), Renato Romano (Virgil), Marina Coffa (Camelia), Annamaria Chio (Mademoiselle Dupres), Michael Forrest (Cowboy), Bruce Eweka (Black Boy), Jessica Dublin (Ruby)

Directed by Denys McCoy

The Short Version: Plotless and pointless, Denys McCoy's only major motion picture credit is in the running for worst western of all time. Starring an emotionally vapid Joe Namath, the film is so badly written, neither Elam nor Strode can wrangle the untamed script that is all over the place, lacking even a modicum of cohesion. Instead of focusing on a complicated three-way of two white Confederates and a black Union soldier the filmmakers surrender their credibility as quickly as General Lee does at the outset. Sadly, a potentially brilliant concept is thrown away in favor of lousy editing, interminable riding scenes and some of the most boring pool playing and gun fights to ever grace the screen. Making a Fidani oater almost bearable, the biggest difference between the two filmmakers is that Fidani, bewilderingly, had a longer career making crap. A Wild West Disaster Movie in the most literal sense.

On the Missouri battlefield in 1865 news comes that General Lee has surrendered in Virginia. Preferring freedom to a Federal prison, Burnside Hollis and his Reb friend Matt Graves make a run for it, steal some horses and head out to prospects unknown. Happening upon a Southern lynch mob about to stretch the neck of a black Union soldier named Duncan, Hollis and Matt save his skin. With no money, Graves decides they should rob a stagecoach; only the first one they cross paths with has two dead occupants and a single live one, a young lady. Heading into a nearby town, the men immediately rile the crooked sheriff. Meantime, the trio plan to hustle a pool shark to make an easy haul. Hollis wins big and gives $4,000 to Duncan for safe keeping and gives the rest to a pretty saloon whore desiring to pay off her debts. Incensed that Hollis didn't give him a cut of the take, Graves swears to get even. Hollis gets into a gunfight and skedaddles; Duncan becomes a father figure to an orphaned boy and Graves joins forces first with the Klan then the corrupt sheriff to get revenge. Finally trapping Hollis and Duncan inside Pearl's whorehouse, the two make a last stand against their former partner.

It's not entirely clear just what THE LAST REBEL is supposed to be about, or what it wants to say. The inebriated script (by Warren Kiefer, an American writer/director who sometimes used Italian pseudonyms on his films) never makes sense, never knows what it's doing, nor where it's going; the story meanders and stumbles from one scene to the next, occasionally puking up half-baked action scenes about as exciting as watching paint dry. The performers fare little better--either falling prey to bad editing or bad acting. 

 
Namath's lazy-eyed Hollis possesses this "oh, well" attitude towards everything. Never once convincing as a southern soldier, you'd think Broadway Joe wandered onto the set fresh off a football game. Other than presenting himself as a serial womanizer (that's a stretch!), there's no characterization, no insight into his persona.... nothing.

Ditto for the two accomplished actors, Jack Elam and Woody Strode; both of whom are wasted in a film that goes lame within minutes of hitting the trail. At least Elam is able to evoke cheap slivers of villainy from his casual use of the word 'nigger' and eventual, open antagonism towards Strode's Duncan.

Strode, sadly, doesn't come off much better. Much like Elam as a bad guy, he manages some slight audience sympathy as a good guy for taking an orphan under his wing. However, we never learn why he does it, or how the boy became abandoned in the first place. The film never bothers to explain anything; and speaking of abandonment, the film's biggest shame is its desertion of exploring racial matters at a time when the subject was topical. Further, it's unfortunate the results are so below average since the storyline holds a sincere amount of potential in its unlikely team-up of two white Rebs and a black Union soldier. 

In the 1969 western GUNS OF THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN there's some fascinating interplay between two of the Seven: a one-armed rebel gunslinger (played by Joe Don Baker) and a black gun fighter (played by Bernie Casey). Granted GOTM7 isn't exposition-heavy material, but it spends enough time on these two men--who initially have heat between them--becoming friends. In THE LAST REBEL, the main focus of the movie is built around such a relationship but the writers/producer/director ignore and squander the very prospects they are promoting.

Had they showcased Hollis growing to see past Duncan's skin color, whereby driving a wedge between his friendship with the highly prejudiced, grizzled Graves, we would of had a far more plausible, immersive, and coherent movie. Instead there's no evolution; Hollis may as well of not even been fighting for the south. He has zero defining characteristics and keeps the same drunken grin on his face from start to finish. Meanwhile, Graves is irrepressibly crude and Duncan's nearly indecipherable line readings give the impression scenes were removed. A missed opportunity by filmmakers who seem to think they'll find treasure by gold panning in a gravel pit. 

The first Spangler Pictures production, THE LAST REBEL was originally planned as a co-pro with Italy and Spain, but Spangler reportedly refused to replace some of his cast members in favor of European stars as per foreign quota requirements. Partnering instead with Glendinning Films, it's strictly an American affair, but with shooting taking place in the two aforementioned European countries.

Chaotic and sloppily put together, sources specify Spangler tried to salvage the film as best he could after a screening of a rough cut left a studio head feeling he'd just seen the worst "piece of shit" of his life.

Spangler, a friend of Namath and producer of THE JOE NAMATH SHOW (1969), produced and or directed a handful of Wild West adventures throughout the 1970s including the weird horror western KNIFE FOR THE LADIES (1974) and a few Fred Williamson adventures like the LEGEND and the SOUL of two NIGGER CHARLEY movies and JOSHUA (1976). 

Amazingly, for all its faults it would seem most everybody had a fantastic time making the picture. The late artist and filmmaker Rea Redifer worked on the script, and referred to the finished product in interviews as terrible, but had great fun working on it. Redifer had previously collaborated with director Denys McCoy (a nephew of famous painter Andrew Wyeth) on Western/Civil War documentaries so the subject was something he could relate to.

One person who worked on THE LAST REBEL who, despite his constant smiling, didn't find it a fun experience was its main star, Joe Namath.

In the late 60s, New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath was everywhere--in books, commercials, television programs--so it was a no-brainer some entrepreneurial producer would attempt to translate his massive popularity to Silver Screen leading man status. His first star turn in C.C. AND COMPANY (1970) was a spirited biker flick kept alive by Ann-Margret, William Smith and a gaggle of familiar Drive-in faces like Sid Haig, Jennifer Billingsley, Bruce Glover and Teda Bracci. Unfortunately, Namath's more experienced co-stars in THE LAST REBEL can't keep his performance on life support from the lack of character development and meaningless dialog.

Namath loved movies but didn't enjoy making them; feeling uncomfortable watching himself play a character and disliking the sound of his voice. This might explain why his acting style is expressively static with the breadth of emotional range limited to the intermittent grinning and line delivery that makes Richard Harrison look Oscar-worthy in comparison.

The wholly inappropriate rock score (reportedly the first film to feature one) by musician Tony Ashton and Deep Purple's Jon Lord is arguably the most interesting thing about the picture even if it makes about as much sense as anything else in the film. There are some good songs ('I'm Dying For You' and 'You, Me, and A Friend of Mine' being two examples) that, as ill-fitting as they are, make the picture bearable.

Shockingly, there are some good things in THE LAST REBEL (1971). One of them being the well built frame of blonde lovely Victoria George. Playing Hollis's saloon whore girlfriend, her standout moment is a sequence where she's seen wearing a diaphanous gown thinly disguising she's topless underneath.

There are a few nicely framed shots in the movie--the most striking being the last shot in the picture. The big, blandly filmed, blood-squib enhanced gun battle has left about a dozen men dead and Pearl's whorehouse in flames; Namath photographed in front of the burning building as Ashton/Lord's funk/jazz blares in the background makes for a fantastic image to close out a unanimously awful movie on.

One other bright spot is seeing Michael Forrest as the unnamed pool shark who gets hustled by Namath in the most boring game of pool ever captured on film. Forrest is familiar from old Roger Corman movies (ATLAS, VIKING WOMEN AND THE SEA SERPENT) and countless television programs; one of the more famous being his role as Apollo on the original STAR TREK. Forrest is also well known for his voice acting skills on dozens of Italian genre pictures--notably for being the chief dubber for famed Italian Tough Guy superstar, the late Maurizio Merli.

Released to scathing reviews, THE LAST REBEL was Namath's last major lead role. Probably for the best, a knee injury kept Namath from attending the film's Alabama premiere in 1971. Rarely discussed, it's understandably remained in obscurity for decades. A veritable train wreck from the first frame to the last, one of the genres worst has yet to surface on DVD anywhere in the world (this satellite airing is in widescreen). Devotees of Namath's football career will surely want to see it out of curiosity. Genre fans, on the other hand, are unlikely to derive any pleasure from viewing 90 minutes of tumbleweed tedium.