YOUNG BILLY YOUNG (WHO RIDES WITH KANE?)
(director/writer: Burt Kennedy; screenwriter: from the novel by Will Henry; cinematographer: Harry Stradling Jr.; editor: Otho Lovering; music: Shelly Manne; cast: Robert Mitchum (Kane), Chris Mitchum (Kane’s son), Robert Walker (Billy Young), Willis Bouchee (Doc Cushman), Deana Martin (Evvie Cushman), David Carradine (Jesse Boone), Angie Dickinson (Lily Beloit), Jack Kelly (John Behan), John Anderson (Frank Boone), Paul Fix (Charlie), Bob Anderson (Gambler), Parley Baer (Bell); Runtime: 89; MPAA Rating: G; producer: Max E. Youngstein; UA; 1969)
“Robert Mitchum and Angie Dickinson provide star power to this ineffective revenge B Western.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Robert Mitchum and Angie Dickinson provide star power to this ineffective revenge B Western.Writer-director Burt Kennedy (“Support Your Local Sheriff”/”Big Bad John”) keeps it like an hour TV program. It uses cliches to build up to the big gunfight at the climax, but even there its action disappoints. It’s based on the novel “Who rides with Wyatt” by Will Henry. The book infers there was a positive mentoring relationship between the real Wyatt Earp and the outlaw Billy Clanton. In the film, Mitchum and Wagner portray those characters. The young Billy Young (Robert Wagner), a gunman who just assassinated a Mexican general and crossed the Texas border to escape, is helped out of scrapes by lawman Ben Kane (Robert Mitchum) and rides with him to his next destination. The lawman has been hired in Bisbee to be a sheriff in Lordsburg to collect delinquent taxes. Kane only accepts when he learns that’s the town where his nemesis, Frank Boone (John Anderson), dwells. Through the back story we learn when Kane was a sheriff in Dodge City he arrested a drunken Boone, who managed to escape and cowardly kill his young son who was sweeping in the jail. The dusty town is run by the corrupt saloon owner John Behan (Jack Kelly), a friend of Boone’s. Kane irritates Behan by not leaving and romancing his kept dance-hall gal, Lily Beloit (Angie Dickinson). Kane finally smokes out Boone when he arrests his wastrel son Jesse (David Carradine) for shooting an old doctor (Willis Bouchee) by mistake. He threatens to shoot him if his dad doesn’t come to town. When he does, he brings his 10-man gang to rescue his son and kill the sheriff. It results in a gunfight. The muddled story also lacked suspense. Everything looked as if lifted from other Westerns, and nothing seemed believable.
REVIEWED ON 2/27/2017 GRADE: C+ https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/