Rather routine but very well made Western - with touches of both humor and heart - starring The Duke as Lane, who, with his buddies Jesse (Ben Johnson) and Grady (Rod Taylor) and three other men, decide that they will help out a widow named Mrs. Lowe (a ravishing Ann- Margret). A long time ago her husband had participated in a major gold robbery, and now she wants the long-hidden gold recovered and returned to the bank in an effort to clear the guy's name. The group embarks on a somewhat treacherous, if not epic, journey to their destination, sometimes fighting amongst themselves along the way.Western expert Burt Kennedy wrote and directed this entertaining movie. It's got enough laughs, poignancy, action, and suspense to make it a good viewing. There are plenty of gorgeous vistas (and matte shots by Albert Whitlock), all wonderfully photographed by cinematographer William H. Clothier, in his final feature film. The story is really nothing truly special, but it holds your attention for a decently paced 92 minutes. Certainly the opening credit sequence does have a very tense, watchful quality going for it. The main asset is an array of engaging performances: The Duke is typically commanding, Johnson and Taylor very amiable, Ann-Margret quite appealing. Rounding out Lanes' gang are Christopher George as Calhoun, singer Bobby Vinton as Ben Young, and stuntman Jerry Gatlin as Sam Turner. Ricardo Montalban makes a few fleeting appearances as a mysterious character whose presence is explained at the end of the picture. And the big reveal is worth a chuckle.This may not be a great film of its kind, but it is a good one.Seven out of 10.

64 minutes and change into the movie, four slaughtered horses laying out --and way too many horse riding scenes, used as filler --It looks like it was produced by one of John's sons, so John probably did the movie as a favor to his boy --The "widow" looked to be maybe 19 to 20, which is kind of typical for a movie, but still a person gets tired of seeing this, old or modern movies. Lets see, we have a woman who has been married for several years, has a kid of a few years, so lets make her a 19 year old. many modern movies use a gal in her very early 20s that have teen age kids, so I guess its par for the course --I did not bother finishing the movie, as slaughtering animals out of hand for movie footage makes the movie not worth a plug nickel to me --

This is another pretty good John Wayne movie. He leads a small team of adventurers in to Mexico to try and recover what is supposedly gold from a robbery. The widow is played by Ann- Margret and she is the eye candy for this movie and not a bad one at that. She says she wants to return the gold to clear her husbands name. The group goes looking for the gold. They end up finding it but a lot of bandidos show up to try and rob them. There is a lot of killing and explosions and they get the gold home. Here Ann-Margret takes the gold and as she is leaving on the train the guys learn she is just a hooker and is stealing the loot. Ben Johnson and Rod Taylor play two of the side kicks and are very good in their supporting roles. Bobby Vee is the youngster just starting out on the trail of the enforcer and does okay.

I missed the first five minutes of this movie and thought I was watching a B movie western from the 1960s starring the Duke . It wasn't until I came onto this site to type my comments that this production was released in 1973 . Think about it . John Wayne had received an Oscar three years previously and Ben Johnson had received a Best Supporting actor Oscar for THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and yet here they were appearing in a Western that screamed B movie that American studios churned out in the 1950s and 60s . Everything is framed and shot like you'd expect from a Hollywood movie from that era It should also be remembered that with the release of BONNIE AND CLYDE in 1967 the whole Hollywood structure and ethos was changing . Films were geared to a younger audience with dubious morality and one can't help wondering who is the market for this type of film that still epoused White Anglo Saxon protestant ideals