PALO PINTO GOLD

Got a screener dvd of this new western way back before Thanksgiving.  On the back of the dust jacket it says,  "Order Due Date: Dec. 29; Street Date: Jan 20....Only $24.95 with a PPV Window of 90 days and a 4 month Pay Cable Window of 4 months."  Oh...yeah...Bob Polunksky of The San Antonio Times said......"DELIGHTFUL.....a western just like they used to make 'em." I don't know who "they" are but whoever "they" are could certainly make 'em better....why even you and I could make 'em better if we had the same equipment and money, or even a camera, some film and a cuppla actors.  So save your $24.95, even your $2.49 or your 24 cents and sit back and read on!

It seems this Texan Anthony Henslee decided to make a western so he co-wrote a script, starred himself and even directed it.  I wish wish it were good; I even wish it were tolerable but it's so hard to watch.  Good intentions do not a good movie make.

Starts out in the early 1900's with a writer pulling into the dirt parking lot of a beer joint.  (We know it's the early 1900's since this is supposed to be a western and he's driving a Model-A roadster.) The writer wants to find out the real facts about a famous gun-fight that took place in front of the joint.  So happens a youngster in the joint overhears him talking to the barkeep and points out ol' Roy Clark and ol' Mel Tillis sitting at a table...glad it was Mel and not Buck Owens as I would have thought it to be an episode of Hee-Haw.  The youngen goes on to tell the writer that ol' Roy and ol' Mel happened to have been there some 50 odd years before when it happened and from the looks of them it appears they had  stayed there at that table for the next 50 0dd years.   So the writer sits down after being introduced and a bit of chit-chat and convinces them that he'll write the true story as they tell it as ol' Roy seems pissed that all previous writers or reporters always seemed to change what he told them and wrote what they wanted.....then one cliche western bit after another and that's only the first 14 minutes.  Shame when the regular story started and it even had Kinky Friedman in it as the Texas Govenor...'spose since he once was an unsuccessful candidate for that office....it never got much better and seemed to take 50 years to watch.  Another actor/stuntman in the production was Bill Hart who doubled Glenn Ford in BORDER SHOOTOUT  and as bad as ol' Glenn's last western is it still is 100 times better than "PPG."    And the way he could still command the screen the leads in "PPG" couldn't even wear the support gunbelt ol' Glenn wore in his last oater.

Hate the "end arounds" they put on some westerns like the one on PPG and THE LAST RIDE OF THE DALTON GANG.