Alcoholic sociopaths of the Ooooooollll’ West! I can’t tell if anything in this oater is true or accurate, but it is mostly a good watch. Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan make an amusing odd couple as a drifter and judge Roy Bean, respectively, who wind up friends, then enemies, and then frenemies on both sides of a range war between cattlemen and homesteaders. The story goes all over the place, from comedy to drama to action and violence to romance and probably a few things I’ve already forgotten, but it mostly holds together under the expert direction of William Wyler. The only quibble is that, even at a standard for its time (1940) length of an hour and forty, the show does run just a bit too long. Nevertheless, the movie delivers a classic quality Western experience, and as such it hits its mark with a sharpshooter's skill. That’s my ruling.
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