John Wayne plays Will Andersen, a 60-year-old cowboy who laments the passing of the “old” west when a man’s handshake was his bond.
Will needs to get his herd of cattle 400 miles to market but the cowboys he hired have all run off to join a gold rush. So has every man within a 20-mile radius. So who will help Will drive his cows?
His problems are solved when he wakes one day to find a gaggle of schoolboys outside his house applying for the job.
The ‘audition’ involves trying to stay on a horse called Crazy Alice for “a ten count”. Slim does it. Homer does it. Fats does it. B-B-Bob Wilson . . . Charlie Schwartz (a young Jewish boy) and finally Alice succumbs to a wild young lad named Cimarron who admits to being “a mistake of nature”.
Will takes the 11 boys on the cattle drive. They run into a nutcase ex-jailbird (Bruce Dern) who shoots Will in the back and deprives the kids of their leader.
The rest of the film is a tale of revenge.
Mark Rydell (Cinderella Liberty) directs an unexciting production, although performances by some of the younger actors – such as A. Martinez (as Cimarron) and Robert Carradine (as Slim) – are memorable. Roscoe Lee Browne is absolutely marvellous.
Will Andersen
John Wayne Jebediah Nightlinger
Roscoe Lee Browne Long Hair
Bruce Dern Kate
Colleen Dewhurst Fats
Alfred Barker Jr. Dan
Nicolas Beauvy Steve
Steve Benedict Slim Honeycutt
Robert Carradine Weedy
Norman Howell Charlie Schwartz
Stephen R. Hudis Stuttering Bob
Sean Kelly Cimarron
A Martinez Hardy Fimps
Clay O’Brien Jimmy Phillips
Sam O’Brien Homer Weems
Mike Pyeatt Anse
Slim Pickens Annie Andersen
Sarah Cunningham Ellen Price
Allyn Ann McLerie Phoebe
Maggie Costain Smiley
Matt Clark Howdy
Jerry Gatlin Okay
Walter Scott Henry Williams
Richard Farnsworth Red Tucker
Wallace Brooks Elizabeth
Charise Cullin
