The Good Guys and the Bad Guys

[mrsl]

This is a continuation of a discussion that was started on the General Chat thread. After a review of The Yakuza, it became kind of a one on one about how Mitchum creates a character, mainly based on the Mitchum collection.

Now y'all know me and my opinion of Bobby M-M-M, but the Yakuza was a little too vicious for me, I spent most of my time with my eyes closed. As for The Good Guys and the Bad Guys, I kind of think of it as the flip side of Ride the High Country. In High Country you have two old law-abiding friends working together, but one decides to do a bad thing to finance his old age, and the other tries to stop him. In Good Guys you have two enemies, one good, one bad, but at the end of their 'careers' they decide to work together to get rid of a bad element, but in this case it's with rollicking good fun, slapstick humor, and verbal zingers, as the bad guy turns good.

Mitchum and George Kennedy meld together like salt and pepper as if they had been making movies for years together. But then, isn't that the sign of a couple of fine actors? Besides them, it's all there, the verbal, the slapstick and the silly situations. There's a train situation that WILL have you chortling at the very least.

So, if you happen to run across that discussion, I'm telling you here, to go ahead and see The Good Guys and The Bad Guys, I'm sure you will enjoy yourselves.



BTW - Miss Goddess - I don't know what the Tall T is either!!! And what you said about Maureen's character is very much how I felt about Geraldine Page in Hondo - If you grew up on the prairie, you should know at least how to ride a horse western style as well as shoe a horse.

Anne

[cinemalover]

Anne,
I really WANTED to like TGGATBG but it didn't work for me. You're right when you say the chemistry between Mitchum and Kennedy was natural and unforced. They are the only thing worth watching in the picture. I think the problem was more behind the camera. Director Kennedy was trying to mold this into a Support Your Local Sheriff and he either didn't have the script to work with or the supporting cast was unable to generate the warmth and humor of Sheriff.

Martin Balsam as the prancing mayor was not in the same league as his counterpart in Sheriff, Harry Morgan. It also couldn't match up with the supporting characters that made that film a classic: Walter Brennan, Joan Hackett, Jack Elam (in the best role of his career) and Bruce Dern.

[mrsl]

I get what you're saying, but watching the movie for its own merits without thinking about Support . . . Sheriff, would make it worth seeing. I definitely grant you that the supporting cast in Sheriff was much better though.

Anne

[cinemalover]

It's not fair to compare it to Sheriff, true, but what really bothered me about the Good Guys was that it kept setting up potentially comic situations but couldn't deliver a punch line. You see a joke coming, you're ready to laugh, and then they pull the rug out. Ha, ha, joke's on you, there is no joke. If it had been played as a pure adventure it would have been much more entertaining for me. Instead it's somewhere in the middle of an action western and a comedy, neither of which was very satisfying.

[MissGoddess]

I've never seen The Good Guys and the Bad Guys so I can't say yet. However, I do lilke The Yakuza. I admit I too turned away from the violence but I thought Mitchum's character really "cool" and he was so sexy still at that stage in his life. I wanted it to end a little differently with the woman, of course, but thought it was well written. Brian Keith was the surprise, he's a favorite too but I prefer him in other kinds of roles.