"Monte Walsh" is a very slow, deliberate and meandering sort of film. It's really quite lovely but also a bit thin when it comes to plot.The film is set in the waning days of the old west. Jobs for cowhands are drying up and old timers like Monte (Lee Marvin) and his friend, Chet (Jack Palance) are living anachronisms. During the course of the film, not only is their way of life dying but all sorts of rotten things happen to the folks Monte loves and as they drop like flies, he's pretty much all alone.To heighten the effect of loneliness, the film has excellent melancholy music and is deliberately slow and brooding. It works but might annoy some viewers who want a lot of action. Well, until near the end there ain't any....so deal with it! Worth seeing despite being a bit depressing and slow.

(Thematic SPOILERS)This is half of a great movie. The great half is the first, where we meet cowboys dealing with a time when their world is coming to an end. Corporations are taking over, and the work of the cowboy is needed less and less.The second half is where things go awry. The movie goes into formula mode. The greatness of the first half, with its quiet moments of reflection, and views of life on the range, go away. In their place is murder, heartbreak and revenge. I was very disappointed in the way the film went.Often-cinematographer William Fraker takes the Director's Chair here and does admirably. He is supported by David Walsh behind the camera. John Barry provides an excellent score. He would later earn an Oscar with "Dances with Wolves," and fans of that score can get more of Barry's work in the Western genre here. Barry strays into his James Bond score work occasionally here, which is distracting.The issue in this film is with the origin material. Jack Shaefer, who wrote the novel, also wrote "Shane." Maybe he wasn't ready to go without overt drama to make his point. That's too bad.****** (6 Out of 10 Stars)

When considering the acting career of Lee Marvin, the movie Monte Walsh must be included as an example of Lee Marvin at his best, Mr. Marvin gives a powerful, compelling and moving performance as an aging cowboy who has to deal with change. So strong is his performance that he carries the entire movie, which, given the outstanding supporting cast, including Jack Palance, Jeanne Moreau, Jim Davis and Mitchell Ryan, is saying a lot. The story contains drama and pathos without becoming melodramatic or stagy and includes some spectacular cinematography which captures the essence of the open range. What makes this movie particularly wonderful is its unpretentious dramatization of relationships between people with whom the audience can relate and what happens to them as they try to adjust to a disappearing way of life. As the open range gave way to the fenced in ranches, an entire way of life disappeared. This movie is about what that change means to people and how it effects their lives.

My favorite Lee Marvin role is the title role of the film Monte Walsh. Lee and his friend Jack Palance are a couple of aging cowboys who are proud of the trade they have, but the demands for it are becoming fewer and fewer.Monte Walsh debuted two years after another film with the same themes, Will Penny brought great critical acclaim to Charlton Heston. Heston and Marvin essayed the same kind of role, the aging cowboys who are finding less and less work for themselves as the years pass.Both Walsh and Penny practice their trade in the Brokeback Mountain country and you can bet that Ennis Delmar and Jack Twist when they got into town and went to the movies, really identified with both of these guys. Ennis and Jack could easily be the descendants of both Heston and Marvin.Unlike Will Penny whose greatest challenge was with a bunch of renegade rawhiders, Monte Walsh has to deal with the death of his best friend at the hands of another he considered a friend. Palance gets tired of the cowboy life and settles down and gets married to a widow who owns a hardware store and gets killed in a robbery. The code by which both Marvin and Palance live by would allow for not even the law to mete out justice here.Lee Marvin was not known for playing the most admirable characters on the screen, but he's positively noble in this role. I've never admired him more on the screen than in Monte Walsh. He invests the title character with humanity, dignity, and pride. Of course that was in an era when one could be proud of your labor and way of life.Fourteen years earlier Marvin supported Jack Palance in an excellent World War II film, Attack. Now things came full circle as Marvin got to be a star via an Oscar for Cat Ballou and Palance supports him and well. That's the movie business for you.Western veterans like G.D. Spradlin and Jim Davis support Marvin well. French cinema star Jeanne Moreau is Marvin's consumptive girl friend and Mitchell Ryan is the treacherous Shorty. And this was the farewell performance of Roy Barcroft one of the best western villains that ever sat a saddle.People who are not necessarily western fans will appreciate the care that went into making this fine film.