By this time we can all agree that in every role he's taken, John Wayne plays himself. This time around he's a bit like the monolith; you know it's there and it kind of dominates the scenery but that's not the most important part of it. The Duke shares co-star status with Kirk Douglas. I like him better here, he's got that devil-may-care personality, and he gets all the best lines of the movie.
Duke plays Taw Jackson, a man wronged by Pierce--just Pierce--, a man who stole Taw's land for the gold stake, framed Taw and sent him to jail. Now that he's on parole, Taw means to get back at Pierce by robbing his money wagon. One problem: this 'wagon' is an armored carriage, with a Gatling gun, which is guarded by 30 men on horseback. No problem.
Basically it's a caper movie with cowboys and Indians. Taw hires for his crew old man Fletcher and his abused teenage wife, the 'smart' Indian Levi Walking Bear, and a drunken explosives expert, Billy Hyatt (Robert Walker Jr.). The last member of the crew is Lomax, played by the irrepresible Kirk Douglas. Pierce has a mind to hire gunslinger and safe-cracker Lomax to kill Taw, except Taw hires him first. Neither man trusts the other, but that's the sparks that keeps things moving.
Told you Kirk gets the best lines? Well, they've gone to find Levi Walking Bear and they find him all right...tied to a rock and used as target practice for a band of drunken Mexican banditos. Lomax takes one look at that and remarks dryly to Taw, "Let me guess which one's your friend."
Naturally we have the stereotypes, the drunken Mexicans and the untrustworthy Indians. Still it's an entertaining outing that never drags. The Duke is straight man to Kirk in their last film together and they milk for laughs. Recommended.
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