Some of the worst acting ever committed to film by name players. The story is weak, the score abysmal, the directing non existent. This may have been the film that doomed Sam Elliott to supporting roles, B movies and TV westerns following his bravura performance in "Once An Eagle." Dennis Hopper's mumbled lines take up about 30 seconds. Ben Johnson is sleepwalking through his role and the female lead would have had difficulty outshining the furniture. Poorly written, poorly directed and poorly acted. It is hard to understand the high ratings given by some reviewers. If the novel on which it was based was as bad as this two-part miniseries, it is hard to believe it was published. The horses were pretty good, however.

Sorry all, but even though I overall LOVED the movie the author MISSED on the history. The "Famous Face on the Barroom Floor" was not painted on the floor of the Teller House of Central City Colorado until 1936. Movie stated that competing at the shooting contest was Billy Dixon who died in 1913. How could Billy have possibly been at the contest after he was dead?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Face_on_the_Barroom_Floor_(painting)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Dixon8 out of 10 for the overall feel of the movie, 2 out of 10 for the history inaccuracy.A simple average of the above scores would lead to a 50% or 5 of a possible 10. A simple average, though does not explain the high level of overall enjoyment from the work of fiction. The wife properly explained it as a historical romance novel which misses on some accounts.Watch it and enjoy it, but first turn off a portion of your mind.

It would make more sense to view this story as a TV mini-series the way it was originally produced than to do as I did, and catch it all in one sitting on Encore Westerns. For one, the picture is ponderously long at three and a half plus hours, and you have to be patient with the abrupt scene changes that were designed around commercial breaks and new chapters. Particularly frustrating was a seven year time lapse that reunites Hugh Cardiff (Sam Elliott) and Libby Tyree (Penny Peyser); Libby had gotten married to the adopted Tyree son (Bruce Boxleitner) off screen, and it just springs up on you with no advance warning. Cardiff had promised to return in a year's time, but didn't, and one's only indication that time was passing by was the sudden aging of Sam Elliott's character.The interesting part about the story has to do with the way Cardiff manufactures a persona for himself and friend Caleb Rice (Timothy Scott) based on frontier exploits that are entirely made up. They capture the imagination of pulp fiction writer Bob Halburton (Pat Hingle), and based on the success of his newspaper's accounts, the boys find themselves headlining Wild Bill Hickok's Wild West show. Besides Hickok, portrayed by L.Q. Jones, the other historical figure to make an appearance was Doc Holliday, courtesy of Dennis Hopper. Neither character had much to do with the story, particularly Holliday, who was on camera just about long enough to be out-gunned by Cardiff in a not very satisfying showdown.The finale itself also turned out to be fairly anti-climactic. You know the love triangle had to be resolved, but there didn't seem to be the tension one expects of an inevitable showdown. With Cardiff's gun skills at the center of the story, it didn't take too much to figure out who would come out on top, and once again, it's all over in pretty much a flash.With only a few comments posted on this forum regarding the picture, I can see I'm in the minority, but I just didn't find this Western to be that rewarding. It's not terrible, but not exciting enough to score a recommendation. Maybe in the original format it might have made a stronger statement, but if you're on the fence about catching it, it wouldn't hurt to let it pass.

This is the basic western of man meets girl, looses girl.The cast is second to none. Mini Series on TV Sam Elliott plays Hugh Cardiff an ex-Buffalo hunter. With his shooting skills he starts the following the shooting competitions.At the shooting competitions he meets Ben Johnson and Timothy Scott, the 3 become good friends.The threesome get into trouble and help each other out. For a historical flare, the threesome even meet Wild Bill Hickok and go into business together. While long for a movie, if you like to just sit down and watch one for a couple/three nights this one is a great one.