SIDEKICKS

US, 1974, 75 minutes, Colour.
Larry Hagman, Louis Gossett Jr, Blythe Danner, Jack Elam, Harry Morgan, Gene Evans, Noah Beery Jr.
Directed by Burt Kennedy.

Sidekicks is one of the many western comedies written by William Bowers and directed by Burt Kennedy. Bowers had begun writing thrillers in the 1950s but tended to specialist in comic westerns from the 1970s onwards including Support Your Local Sheriff, The Gun and the Pulpit, Kate Bliss and the Tickertape Kid. He collaborated with Burt Kennedy in many of these films for television. However, Kennedy had specialised in westerns from the 1950s and 60s including some classics like Welcome to Hard Times, The War Wagon, Support Your Local Sheriff.

The film is a variation on a theme, this time Larry Hagman in the west with sidekick Louis Gossett Jr (who was to win an Oscar some years later for An Officer and a Gentleman). Character actress Blythe Danner (mother of Gwyneth Paltrow) is the leading lady and veteran western and comic stars Jack Elam and Harry Morgan are in support. Humorous and entertaining.

1. An enjoyable comedy western?

2. The qualities of the film as a telemovie? As a sequel? The conventions of knockabout comedy, the conentions of the westenn? The significance of the title and the relationship between Quincey and his partner?

3. Colour location photography, comic music?

4. How enjoyable was the plot? A picaresque western? Following the adventures of the two, misunderstandings, their shrewd exploiting of situations, moneymaking, romance, happy ending?

5. The two sidekicks and their relating to one another, two conmen, the black and white theme? Their memories of the past, their bad luck, their exploiting situations, their loyalty to one another? Quincey and his fascination with Prudie? Their being caught up with the mastermind criminal? The humour and irony of their encounters with him and working for him? Their good luck in not being discovered? The irony of their being captured by the gamblers from the town? Their getting mixed up in so many different plots and their coming throughk them all? Two enjoyable comedy men of the west?

6. The character of Prudie and the ironic presentation of the heroine of the west, tongue-lashing, impulsive, quick with guns, preoccupied with hanging? Her father’s exasperation at her? Quincey's liking for her? The humour of the kidnapping, her continual taunting of them, their being vindicated at the end? An enjoyable comic performance?

7. The character of the sheriff and his easygoing running of the town, letting them go, arresting them, being Involved with Prudie and the whole plot? The main villain and his masterminding of things? The kidnappers taking the wrong pair from the prison? The gamblers and their attacking the two? The two criminals imprisoned, who made their escape? What kind of west was this and what kind of people?

8. Ordinary western themes of right and wrong, law and order, surviving in the west? The final build-up and shoot?out? The appropriate happy ending?

10. A fun western but using the conventions of the more serious western?