CATLOW (1971)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Sam Wanamaker

SCREENWRITER: Scot Finch, James Griffith

FILM STARS: Yul Brynner, Richard Crenna, Leonard Nimoy, Daliah Lavi, Jo Ann Pflug, Jeff Corey, Michael Delano, Julián Mateos, David Ladd, Bob Logan, Bessie Love

COUNTRY: Great Britain / USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Louis L’Amour

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Corgi

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1972

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1963

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Western

WORDS: I have read a lot of Louis L’Amour. Louis L’Amour has written a lot of books. Many Louis L’Amour novels have been filmed. I have watched many films based on Louis L’Amour novels.

Very few have been filmed successfully. This isn’t one of them. It’s a British western (produced in England but funded through MGM with American leads and director) and for whatever reason, very few British westerns work (the same applies to British film musicals). I’m not sure why …

The film, filmed in Spain, is watchable, but only due to the cast … Brynner, Crenna and Nimoy in the same film … nice. And, having Jeff Cory and the gorgeous Daliah Lavi and Jo Ann Pflug doesn’t hurt. But, the film is all over the place, oddly directed, with much tongue-in-cheek, cynical, and sardonic humour. I can’t recall it being good. I recall it being odd. Brynner’s Catlow seems too contemporary (in attitude and attire) and is not what a L’Amour hero would look like. Clearly, the film was looking towards the humorous  side of the spaghetti westerns for inspiration. Englishmen, producer Euan Lloyd, and primary screenwriter Scot Finch, wrote two other European films based on L’Amour novels The Man called Noon (1973) (in which Richard Crenna co-starred) and Shalako (1968) with Sean Connery which is the best of the three.

The book is a straight action western and different in tone to the film. It’s not one of L’Amour’s best but it is easily readable and full of the usual L’Amour types in this setting – bad guys with a heart of gold, lawmen who aren’t entirely sure that the law is the best way to achieve justice, cowboys, Indians, gunfights, danger, action and places that actually exist. Here L’Amour adopts an old film trope from gangster films of the 30s – boyhood friends who grew up to be on different sides of the law. Catlow is on the wrong side of the law, though you’d never meet a nicer guy. His best friend, Ben Cowan, is a US marshal and is kind of regretful that his duty is to catch Catlow and arrest him. Though centered on Catlow it is a little unusual for L’Amour (outside the family clan westerns) to have another central character but it works. The novel, also, has more humour than normal for a L’Amour western though not as many as the film, which is played for laughs.

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