Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #260016 in DVD
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Running time: 91 minutes

Amazon.com
James Garner returns for this pseudosequel to Support Your Local Sheriff, this time as a gigolo con man mistaken for a legendary killer. Escaping matrimonial entanglements, he lands in the town of Purgatory in the midst of a raging war between gold miners racing for the mother lode. In a play right out of Maverick, he quickly casts drifter Jack Elam into the gunfighter role and names himself the man's agent, selling his services to the highest bidder and pocketing a sizable commission. Garner double-talks his way through one deal after another with a wink and a smile while Elam growls and swaggers and rolls his eyes, playacting the role of the cold-blooded gunslinger like a wild-eyed clown. Suzanne Pleshette shoots up the town as Garner's romantic interest, a tomboy in buckskin with an itchy trigger finger and lousy aim, and Chuck Conners walks tall as the real bald-as-a-billiard-ball killer. Apart from the tongue-in-cheek tone and returning cast members (Elam, Harry Morgan, Henry Jones, and Gene Evans are among the familiar faces joining Garner), the film has little in common with Sheriff and never quite recaptures the clever twists and low-key hilarity, but this is a cast who knows how to deliver a gag, and Kennedy's laid-back direction keeps an even, affectionately spoofing tone throughout. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Not Quite a Sequel
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF was a comic masterpiece and cried out, at least in terms on dollars and cents, for a sequel. So they made one, only it wasn't

Almost all of the cast from the SHERIFF appear in GUNFIGHTER but they all play completely different characters. Nothing is the same except that it takes place in the west and is funny, but not as funny as the original.

James Garner plays the role of Latigo Smith. He is a man on the run, not from the law but from a woman who expects to marry him. He goes to ground in Purgatory, a mining town. His arrival is noted by the owner of one of the town's two competing mining companies. They think he is a gunfighter hired by the other company. He's not but sees financial opportunity in the confusion. He passes himself off as the agent for the gunfighter (less danger and stress) and cons a down on his luck cowboy into playing the part of the gunfighter.

This is not a movie filled with excitement or drama. It is a comedy. It is not as funny as SHERIFF but it is funny in its own right.

A classic Western spoof
This is the sequel to the outrageously funny Support Your Local Sheriff. In this film, James Garner plays the con-man Latigo Smith, a man with a passion for foolish bets at the Roulette table and who has just ditched his boisterous fiancee. As far as Smith knows, his biggest problem is getting the tattoo of her name off his chest, but things quickly become more complicated for him when he loses all his money and decides to help a local cowhand (Jack Elam) impersonate a famous gunfighter. Hilarity ensues as the scheme is found out and Smith has to concoct plan after plan to cover himself.

Many members of the comedy troupe from Support Your Local Sheriff are in this movie. Besides Garner and Elam, the very funny Harry Morgan stars, again, as a mining tycoon. Suzanne Pleshette is the love interest this time, and stars as Patience, a half-crazy tomboy whose name is ill-deserved and who is a lousy aim with a gun (fortunately for Smith). This movie never quite reaches the comic peak of the prequel, mostly because the former movie touched on so many of the contemporary Hollywood cliches and seemed a fitting parody of the sheriff common in most of those films. Still, this is a funny movie, a fitting sequel. Watch them both--you won't be disappointed.

Support Your Local Gunfighter
Amusing fluff from the makers of SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF, SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER isn't quite as amusing or easy to warm up to.
Jack Elam steals the show as a roustabout drifter who con man James Garner convinces to impersonate legendary gunman Swifty Morgan. Veteran actors Henry Morgan and Dub Taylor seem to shout every line of dialogue, which doesn't help things much. The uncredited Chuck Connors, another scene stealer playing the real Swifty, shows up in the last ten minutes to bring things to a calamitous conclusion.
I think introducing the Connors' character a half-dozen scenes or so earlier would have helped things immensely. SHERIFF worked so well because there were easily identifiable Good and Bad Guys, and a lot of the laughs came from lampooning Walter Brennan and his brood.
Even so, GUNFIGHTER made me laugh, which is what I got it for. A good movie, if not quite as good as its predecessor.