Last Call At Torchy’s #16 : Wild Bill (1995)

Show Notes

The Torchy’s boys are back after a long absence to ride, do some hard drugs and reminisce with a legendary gunfighter. We join Bill, Jane and array of Walter Hill regulars as he struggles to keep a hold on his addictions, his women, his struggling eyesight and his past catching up to him. This features Jeff Bridges as the titular Wild Bill, Ellen Barkin, James Gammon, David Arquette, John Hurt and James Remar.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

What is The Butcher Shop?

A multi-genre podcast where Gary and his co-hosts (Iris Walters, Suzanne Cappelletti and Jamie Sammons) put two films that share a thread on the table and talk about them with a bit of banter and laughter at each other’s expense.

You gonna shoot while Bill?

I just gotta get the timeline of my hay.

If you're gonna finish Bill, you ought to just get to it.

I killed two men in my life.

I never made no goddamn circus out of it.

I didn't know no ladies killed.

I was defending myself against unnatural advances.

Well, Bart, it looks like you come to a messy end.

No size to it.

Don't seem right for the great Wild Bill,

but don't look like nothing can be done.

I've been proud to know you, Bill.

So I figured, Jack, this is all this makes no difference to Bill.

Kill him quick, kill him, and don't apologize.

You don't go to hell, Joe.

It'd be a kindness to have your company,

but I'm just trying to get it over with.

Don't hold it against me, Bill.

Kill him.

[music playing]

Can you dig it?

Can you dig it?

Can you dig it?

[cheering]

Every time you got a bar, the bar's got somebody that thinks

he's as tough as a nickel steak, but you all

come to speed with the go-ray meat.

I get this, me partners, we brothers and we friends.

My little brother was 15 years old.

Think about things.

You'll wake up in hell.

How about cutting the AIDS?

Oh, I get it.

You want some kind of contest, huh?

You're real smart boys.

I guess maybe you'll have to kill me.

I'm a little hurt if I do.

Well, it looks like I finally ran into someone

that likes to play as rough as I do.

Yeah, this must be your lucky night.

My buddies, they're not nice like me.

We sponsor safe banks.

You're not supposed to say nothing, soldier.

[music playing]

Little Hickah!

I'm calling you out!

You ain't afraid of a cripply old man in a wheelchair.

Can't even face you, are you?

Well, Bill has accepted your challenge.

He's gone to some trouble to make things even.

Now, if you don't have any sense left,

you just head on home.

You, sir, will die.

This town, I really think it's like something out of the Bible.

And what part of the Bible?

The part right before God gets angry.

Men wanted to be him.

You best hand over the gun, Phil.

Otherwise, I'm just going to have to step over there

and slap you around some.

Women wanted to love him.

I love you, Bill.

I'll run out of love you, too, game.

And outlaws wanted to be the one to kill the legend.

I'll fly people in peace with our bell.

Paul, Bill, I come here to kill you.

Who wants me to show some color?

Don't do it, Bill!

Jeff Bridges.

Don't explain to the self.

About to hear it, about to know about it.

Ellen Barkin.

Man that kills Wild Bill is going to be all both famous.

John Hurt, Diane Lane, Keith Carradine,

Christina Applegate, Bruce Dern, and David Arquette.

You said that you were a horse molester.

You say, "What horse?"

In a film by Walter Hill.

I'll be seeing you around, Wild Bill.

Wild Bill.

Take a walk on the wild side.

Hello, folks.

Welcome back to Last Call of Torchy's.

I am one of your hosts, Gary Hill.

With me tonight, as usual, is Lee Russell.

Hello.

We're going to talk some acid-western and other stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Also with us tonight from the--

well, yeah, he does many, many things, much like Lee.

Our friendly competent and riding partner, if you will.

Mr. Cameron Scott, how are you doing?

I'm doing great, and I am apologizing for shit.

[LAUGHTER]

I mean, maybe, but not likely.

Maybe, maybe.

Yeah.

We're talking tonight about Wild Bill from 1995.

It's just about-- just what you think it is about the legendary

lawman, Wild Bill Hickock, who was the end of his life.

And he's a chief plot synopsis, too, with the early career

of legendary lawman, Wild Bill Hickock,

is telescoped and inculminates in a relocation in Denwood--

dead, dead, Denwood, and a reunion with Calamity Jane.

This is written from two books, the script by Walter Hill

and directed by Walter Hill.

Your long, long cast includes Jeff Bridges as Wild Bill

Hickock, Ellen Barkin as Calamity Jane,

John Hurt as Charlie Prince, Diane Lane as Susanna Moore

and in "Flashbacks" only.

So she's back again, which is great.

Keith Carradine back again as Buffalo Bill Cody,

Banner Roll from David Arquette as Jack McCall.

We'll talk about that.

Christina Applegate as Lerlene Newcomb,

his "The Voice and His Ear," take some do-shit.

You get about two minutes of "Burst"

during this movie, and it's a wonderful two minutes,

as Will Plummer.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

New addition to the Walter Hill universe,

but I wish she was here forever playing everything.

James Gammon as California Joe.

This guy in bad here, Marjorie Gortner as Preacher,

with his delicious curly locks, still in play.

And--

I think that's still the last thing he's done, right?

Could be, I think so, pretty close here.

James Remarry shows up as Donnie Lonegan.

Another Walter Hill alum, Stoney Jackson,

who showed up in "Trespass" and "Streets of Fire"

and that might be about it, but still.

He shows up in this movie as Jubai Pickett, our only

African-American cowboy in this movie,

and he plays it pretty good.

So we'll get in this proper right now,

and I'll ask Cameron his initial thoughts on the movie.

Initial thoughts, I remember when I first saw this.

I didn't understand the movie.

I don't know what frame of mind I was in in 1995,

but I was graduating high school,

and maybe my mentality just wasn't

correct for a movie about old men dying in the Old West.

I just don't know.

But I rediscovered the movie about 10 years later,

so it would have been about 2005 or so.

And I saw it at a screening up in Chicago.

It was on a double feature.

Wow, I kind of can't even remember what the double feature was,

but that doesn't matter what the other movie was,

because we're not here to talk about that.

And I instantly fell in love with the movie.

I don't know what frame of mind I was in that first time,

but it wasn't right.

I love Jeff Bridges in it.

I love the style of it.

It's grown on me over the years.

I love how it switches back and forth from black and white

to the color.

I love the color scheming of it.

And the cast, you've already went through the whole cast,

but Jack Gammon, god damn is he good in this.

He's the reason to show up.

Him and Ellen Barkin, as far as I'm concerned.

And Jeff Bridges is no slouch at all.

I mean, he totally embodies Wild Bill Hickok.

You would have believed he was Wild Bill Hickok.

But it's a shame that this movie didn't do better.

It's a shame that it's not held as in high regard.

I think it's one of the lesser known hits out of Walter Hills.

The ammunition in his gun belt, so to speak.

It does suffer from some third act slog, I think,

is probably why some people probably don't get into it.

It's a bit long in the tooth.

Much like with Wild Bill himself,

it's a bit long in the tooth.

But I got mad love for this movie.

I think this is one of the highlights of the Western genre,

to be honest, and I'll leave it at that.

Cool, Lee?

So I think the first time I saw this

was sometime in the '90s on TV, like the late '90s,

somewhere around there.

And I didn't hate it or anything.

It was just kind of like, oh, it was a movie.

I watched it.

And then that was the last time I had seen it

until watching it for the show.

Oh, damn.

Yeah.

And man, I definitely like it a lot more this time around.

I kind of like it mostly for the fact

that it really is like Walter Hill kind of like trying

to step a little bit out of his regular sort of mode again,

like with Geronimo.

Although here he is doing a different thing

than he's doing in Geronimo.

He's taking more of a mythological take

on the main character in Wild Bill here.

And peppering in the sad reality, like the details

surrounding the end of his life.

He's peppering that in a little bit,

but he's much more interested about sort of like painting

that picture of the sort of mythological aspects

of who Wild Bill was.

I think the film wanted to make a point about the reality

of these famous figures versus what is commonly portrayed

and accepted in the general public and pop culture

these days.

I don't necessarily think he 100% succeeds.

Like I think he kind of loses his way a little bit.

Like Cameron was saying, there is kind of a third act slug

in this where I feel like he loses a bit of focus on what

he's kind of trying to accomplish.

But I think he really is trying to like dig deep into the fact

that like Wild Bill was a very, like there's

a lot of conflicting stories about him

and how he sort of propped up his own sort of myth.

And like, you know, Gary's saying how Wild Bill,

law man, like he was very rarely actually a law man.

Like he was a couple of times, but he was mostly just

like a famous drifting cowboy who killed several people

and kind of drifted around making his fortune off

his name, kind of like whatever town he'd go to and shit.

And as we go into the movie, we learn he's kind of,

he makes mistakes, he's a reckless person.

A lot of his life choices end up being really bad

and end up burning him in the end, especially

when it comes to his health.

And I'm sure we'll get into that as we talk about it.

But yeah, it's interesting that like I feel like this might

be the movie that really killed Walter Hill is like a big time

director too, because it was such a financial failure.

But it's one of his most interesting films at the same time.

So yeah, we'll get into it as we talk more about it.

But yeah, I like it.

Yeah, this is right there in the hitch of when the Westerns

were starting to get big and probably big thanks

to Clint Eastwood and Unforgiven when that came out.

That became a huge hit.

And kickstarted this whole Western genre thing.

And I think Walter Hill kind of ran with that.

Just to say, I'll make these Westerns

that I've been interested in making my whole career.

And there's his window.

So you get this, you get the Geronimo film,

which probably was on the last show.

And I think Last Man Standing comes next, I think,

in the chronological order.

But he gets to kind of--

Yeah, it's Last Man Standing.

Yeah.

He kind of gets to make these movies, these wild Western

movies that the subject matter, he's always been fond of.

And this shows pretty well.

Because you got Jeff Bridges kind of playing what Jeff Bridges

plays, this easing going dude who happened to be this killer

lawman back in the day.

He's just kind of like going through the motions in a way

where he'll jump up when he needs to to take care of business.

But he's not interested in helping this or helping that one.

He's very disenchanted with his own image, right?

Like he's presented as a guy who's just like,

he's done everything.

And there's really nothing for him to do anymore.

And now he's just kind of like, oh, hey, it's Wild Bill.

Everyone look, it's Wild Bill.

And he's very disenchanted with the whole thing.

And again, it's very much perfect casting.

Because Jeff Bridges just sort of has that way about him

where he fits into a hangout movie,

where he can just sit back and play.

And he does that here.

And also, he looks a lot like fucking Wild Bill.

He looks very--

like if you look at the actual photo as a Wild Bill,

he's pretty dead on casting.

Walter Hill got super, super lucky with the casting here

on that.

And who can play curmudgeony ailing old man better

than Jeff Bridges?

Yeah, the ailing old man, Wild Bill's what, 39 when he died?

That was old for gunslingers back in the day.

Yeah.

And he plays that really well.

You could say it's just a dude playing cowboy.

And you wouldn't be all the way wrong.

Because I'd say, I don't know how many years later--

like eight years later, he would cut his hair

and play Rooster Cogburn in that true grit remake.

And he's pretty much playing the same part of that movie.

This informs Rooster Cogburn way more than it does the dude.

Like, anyone who's saying like he's playing the dude here

doesn't fucking know what you're talking about.

No, he's not the dude at all.

No, this is a drunken mess, a sick killer

at the end of his life, who is trying to live up--

he can't outrun his image, his famous image that even he's

disenchanted with.

And he's really quick to anger as well.

He's trying to live his life.

He's trying to like, I just want to go someplace

and live a quiet life, kind of, like get out from under this.

And his image won't allow him to get out from under it.

And people keep pushing him.

And he is quick to like, snap and shoot a motherfucker.

A little too quick sometimes.

You can tell, you know, like, especially--

and I need to re-watch the Elfin movie about Buffalo Bill

and his Wild West show, if that's the thing that exists.

Especially when he's doing that, he's like, yeah,

they're telling the story of the great Wild Bill again.

I'm fucking bored now.

Can I fucking leave?

You know, because he knows what his role is.

He just said, same time, he was like,

this is like the fucking fourth show there.

So he was taken.

And they're like, eh, I'm just fucking going out.

But you're right, the guy who sick of his own image

and sick of people who, of course, folks are constantly

trying to fucking challenge him, including the great Bruce

Dern, which they play that scene so well.

Because you get to see everything of why Bruce Dern is

upset with him because he crippled him in a gunfight.

And he just busts up in that wheelchair.

Yeah, well, fuck, I'm just as quick as you.

And guess what?

He's not, you know?

And there goes old Bruce Dern.

That character could have easily shown up

in "The Quick and the Dead" as well from around this time.

I was thinking the same damn thing.

Yeah.

Like, that feels like a shootout that should

be in "The Quick and the Dead."

I love when they bring--

Wild Bill has them bring him out in a chair

just to make things even.

Mm-hmm.

It's just like, he's already taken an offense

to your being there, so you're just

going to rub salt in that wound.

Like, yeah, go for it, Bill.

Yeah, that's all great.

I mentioned how great James Gammon is in this movie.

And I don't discount that at all.

He's-- I love James Gammon in most things.

But this is being like his partner,

being California Joe.

Just that guy that sit at the poker table

would just say, remember that one time?

Back in blah, blah, blah, blah, you did this.

You shot that guy.

You need this shit-talking partner.

And he plays that so well, just to keep

reminding of what he's done, and at the same time,

reminding others not to fuck with him

by telling them what he's done.

Yeah, he's the poncho via the fucking Wild Bill's Don Quixote.

Like, he's the eternal sidekick, basically.

And he's both support, and he's also a problem,

because everywhere he goes, he's talking about how great

Wild Bill is.

And that just-- that attracts way too much attention

from people in town, wherever the fuck Wild Bill shows up.

Yeah, he's like the world's best wingman,

but also like the world's worst wingman.

He's like, you know, Wild Bill should just lean in,

and just be like, hey, shut the fuck up, would ya?

I'll buy you another shot if you just

don't tell that story again.

Yeah.

Yeah, I also mentioned that this is probably

one of the best David Arquette roles.

I love a lot of David Arquette roles,

as far as him being like the funny guy, the goofy guy.

But this basically being the greatest, you know,

deadbeat dad story, I guess, and never thrown in a Western

ever, because he comes to town because he thinks

that he's scorned his mother.

You find out later that's not the case.

And is he the baby daddy?

You don't know, but he thinks he has some kind of connection

to him, so he's going to be the guy that kills Wild Bill,

which, you know, spoilers, he does.

I'm not sure that's true in history.

I had to go look back at that.

I didn't really do much progression.

He does, but like historically, his character

was Jack McCall, right?

He is, yeah, Jack McCall.

So he was-- he had actually no real relation to Wild Bill.

Like, he was just a drifting, like, gambler, asshole,

deadbeat kind of thing, typical kind of guy

that would be in a saloon that Wild Bill would, you know,

frequent.

And I guess, you know, he crossed Wild Bill,

and Wild Bill rebuffed him or something

like that at some point.

And that's kind of the reason he ended up

doing the killing or whatever.

It had nothing to do with any sort of, like, relation

or, oh, my mother knew you or whatever.

Like, one of the two sources that this film takes its inspiration

from, purported that as a theory as to what was going on.

I don't know if they were trying to purport it as actual truth

or not, like, you know, when it comes to stuff like that coming

out of the Old West, it's very shades of gray.

Like, are you sure maybe?

Is this historically accurate?

What's the intentions of the narrative in this or whatever?

But that was one of the, like, theories

from one of those sources that, oh, he was actually Wild Bill's

kid.

And, you know, that turns it into more of like a Shakespearean

tragedy, almost, in a sense.

There's kind of that vein running through the film.

So I can see why, you know, I can see why Walter Hill would

be interested in including that into this, just

to make it a little bit more, just a little bit sweeter,

you know, make things a little bit more interesting.

Well, it makes things a little bit more fantastical.

It's a little bit more, you know,

it seems like there was more effort put into it.

Like, and another iteration of the story was in the Deadwood TV

series, the Deadwood HBO series, which Walter Hill also

co-produced and directed.

You know, when they have Wild Bill show up in Deadwood,

it's just like, it was more like, I guess,

I'm using their quotes here that you can't see,

that the story versus the reality of it,

where Jack McCall was just a pretty much a vagabond that

just wanted to have a drink with Wild Bill.

And like you said, he kind of rebuffed them and was just like,

oh, OK, well, I'm taking defense to this,

now I'm going to shoot you in the back.

And yeah, and I watched that episode in prep for this just

because I wanted to see, you know, another depiction of this.

And in the actual Deadwood series, it's so casual.

Like, you know, there's a reason for it,

but it's presented as just so matter of fact and casual

as compared to here, where it's like, there's this big buildup.

And like, I can kind of associate it

with assassination of Jesse James by the coward, Robert Ford.

It's got that same sort of like thing going on to it,

where there's this like extended relationship

between David Arquette's character and Jeff Rich's character,

you know, where the story is told throughout the entire film

instead of it just being like a little pinprick in history,

you know, just a little moment, which is the actual reality

of the story.

You got the only voice or reason in the entire movie,

which is played by John Hurt, Charlie Prince.

He's like, he's a third member of the crew, obviously.

So he's trying to, you know, calm things down the best

and can't be at the same time, you can't control Wild Bill

or what Wild Bill's going to do.

So he's kind of like, you know, say love me, you know,

let it happen, you know, it's going to happen anyway.

Just every situation, which I love about John Hurt in this movie,

he's a great actor anyway.

But he's never showed up in a Walter Hill film.

And again, him and James Gammon are welcome additions

to this universe, and you wish there was more of them.

But yeah, Charlie Prince, Charlie Prince

a made up character, not not an actual person.

Oh, OK, he's kind of a yeah, he's a stand in like to like

just flesh out the themes of the film or anything else.

Like he obviously is, he's kind of like the point of view

character for for the audience in a certain degree.

And he's kind of like helping guide us along.

Here's the themes of the story.

Here's what's going on.

There's our fateful narrator.

Yep. And am I the only one that's surprised, even though

I know we've all seen this before this particular viewing.

But does it surprise anybody that still to this day

that he lives through this movie?

Because you think for sure, Charlie Prince is going to buy it

each and every time I watch this.

Yeah, I I'd I felt like you.

I don't I don't know if I don't know if I would 100 percent agree

that I feel I feel the fact that he's a he's a made up character

and he's an narrator kind of just guarantees he's going to survive.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

I mean, he starts out.

He's at the we open with the funeral, right?

So it's still better than fucking he's there.

It's still better than Billy, the kid doing his own narration

and young guns, too, doing the old man voice.

Come on now. Oh, my God.

I love the son of a bitch.

Yeah, I know most of this fiction.

Well, some of this is fiction.

I'm sure a lot of the the egging out of Jack McCall

is because he's constantly has, you know, voices in his ear

to to get it done, finally.

You know, it was from Lerlene, Kristina Applegate's character

or from Donnie Lonergan, James Remar's character, basically saying,

you know, if I can make it happen, if you're angry,

if I can get it done, you know, and we'll take care of you or what that.

And say, I kind of like it.

Well, I'm sorry.

I was just going to say those those characters also, you know, all fictional,

like, you know, the whole thing between behind Jack McCall is totally fictional.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like they almost represent.

They almost represent, like, you know, how you have the angel

in the devil on your shoulder.

He doesn't have an angel on his shoulder.

He's got three devils on his shoulder, like constantly telling him,

you know, kill this motherfucker.

And they're all bitches, quite frankly.

They're all bitches that don't want to do the job themselves.

Right. It kind of helps.

It kind of helps in the narrative in the end, you know,

to where he has a has a moment of reason there.

Like, should I do this?

Because they have the whole having the actual conversation

while Bill about, you know, his mother and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it's still pretty well in the flashbacks, in my opinion.

But, you know, he didn't know all that, obviously.

And, but, you know, he does the deed anyway.

And I have mentioned Ellen Barking yet.

And I should have a long time ago as Calamity Jane, another another voice

of reason, but reckless herself.

But she was a while billed a highly highly sexed up version

of the real Calamity Jane, who looks like the most sex.

If you look at photos of her, it looks like the most rough around the edge

is sexless schoolmarm you could ever think of from back in the day.

Like here, she is like, oh, yeah, yeah, I get why Jeff Ridge is just, you know,

raw dogs are on a fucking poker table or whatever, you know, at one point.

And gets cockblocked, gets fucking cockblocked.

Mid stroke. What the hell?

It's like Carrie, the way Carrie is written in the Stephen King book.

It's nothing close to what the movie represented, the movies are represented.

It's a you never get that and whatever it is, it is.

But she's great and it's hard.

It's hard not to make Ellen Barking a sex by me.

If you see her today, I just watched them.

That Netflix movie that I work for, wow, damn.

It's got Pierce Bros and her Adam, Adam Levine and I forget who else.

Oh, yeah, the outlaws, which is very fun.

But she's Foxy, like 70 years old.

So it's kind of hard to say, hey, he ugly.

He ugly this girl down, please.

Like, you can't do it. You can't do it, you know?

Oh, yeah. And if you do do it, shame on you.

I, you know, I recently was, you know, while I ran the same time I watched this,

I rewatched Sea of Love from 89 or whatever with Al Pacino,

where, you know, she she's like physically bigger than Al Pacino,

who's a very small man and that's a sex.

You know, that's a psychological sort of sex thriller kind of thing.

And at one point, she forcefully smashes Al Pacino up against the wall

and just starts playing with his junk. Nice. OK.

I probably never thought I'd want to see a sex scene with.

Yeah, I never thought I want to see a sex scene with Al Pacino in it.

But here we go.

I haven't seen Alan Barkin.

You kind of forget that Al Pacino's in it.

Yeah, I haven't seen this is probably early 90s cable.

So I should I shouldn't go revisit that movie.

Oh, so worth a rewatch.

This the buddy cop thing between Al Pacino and John Goodman alone sells that movie.

Nice. Michael Rooker popping up in that shit.

I got to check it out.

I must be a fucking first time watch because I haven't seen it so long.

Of course, if you want to you want to go further, Alan Barkin.

Reunites with Al Pacino and Ocean's 13, which I have a lot of time for that series to just

um, it's some some dude bro shit of those movies.

But it's dude bro shit I can enjoy.

It's charming. It's charming shit.

It is trying to recreate that that rat pack feel kind of thing.

And it mostly succeeds, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh.

But yeah, this is this is great, though, as like Lisa,

there's a lot of fictional characters made up for the movie.

But it helps move the narrative along pretty well, in my opinion.

I don't know who who you replace these characters with with actual people with.

But that's that's that's a conversation for some use.

I'm sorry. That's the thing you can't write.

Like it's if you don't have these people to like on the on the actual screen

to fill in the gaps a little bit, the movie becomes way more boring

because you got to like rely on like the historical records.

And a lot of those are tenuous at best, considering their sources

or, you know, whatever was written or talked about in the Old West, for the most part,

which, you know, not not a not a time where a lot of like great records

were necessarily kept about this stuff, especially when it comes

to accuracy of gunfighters and shit like that.

But any, you know, like this movie sort of sort of skirts around it a little bit.

But throughout this whole movie, you know,

Jeff Ridge's people, maybe people don't realize this, you know,

while Bill was dying of like syphilis related glaucoma

and are just syphilis, basically.

But that's the reason he's going blind.

Like, you know, people know he was going blind or whatever.

But people don't realize he had syphilis.

That's why he was dying.

Like by the time he came to Deadwood, he was already like going to die

within like a year's time at the very most, right?

Right. Like he there's a there's a sort of

runoff line he talks about where he had a doctor

like sticking needle into his pecker at one point or whatever.

And to try to cure a little problem we had a few years back in another town.

Like he's talking about having been injected with like mercury into his genitals,

which is something they used to do to try to cure syphilis back in the day,

which usually just ended up giving you other problems.

So, yeah, well, they know that.

They know that now we're spending it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But but, you know, they sort of skirt around that a little bit,

like, you know, the real dirty details of what Wild Bill was going through back in the day.

Like he was not long for this world,

whether he got a bullet in the back of the head or not.

So if you're listening to this guy is he what you think?

I'll put a syringe of mercury in your penis.

It might be a bad idea to throw it out there. OK.

What does it do?

Yeah, you might want to try it like you took talkers out there.

Actually, you know what? You guys try it.

Yeah, but all the talkers should try it.

They should try it twice.

Yeah, both balls.

Both balls, two needles, one for each nut.

But the gorilla glue girl on the internet,

you could be just like her, but with mercury in your ball sacks.

Come on now, you know, remove yourself from the gene pool, please.

And thank you.

Oh, but really, yeah, you do it, folks.

Just just just just do it.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love.

I love, you know, the which what action set pieces you do get in this movie,

which is basically shootouts that they're they're pretty well staged.

I love. I love the end one where were James Remar and his crew come in

and they're going to clean up just in case

Mr. Mr. McCall can't get it done and they can shot up real good.

Oh, yeah, yeah, those are those are those are shot very, very well.

I mean, I like I love the whole movie, the way it's shot.

But interesting fact for from he never should.

But I'm sorry, it's like he never shoots bad shootouts, right?

Like that's that's one thing.

Walter Hill always brings to the table.

Like we were talking about the drama, Geronimo ones, right?

Like that's just more of the same here.

And there's, you know, there's brief shootouts, too, which which I love.

You know, it's not a prolonged like 1940s Western shootout

where they're ducking and dodging behind shit and all that.

Like it's a really dirty, nasty fight.

Like the fight he has with the soldiers or whatever, where at first

he's just like trying to like fistfight him and stuff.

And eventually he has to pull his fucking guns or he was going to get beat to death.

Or the one shoot out when he's merely had the guy that was just fucking with his hat.

You know, over in like, you know, 12 seconds.

But shot and only the way that Walter Hill can.

Yeah, we'll get those long 20 minute shootouts in the next movie.

Oh, yeah.

Well, interesting fact from the IMDB, Jeff Bridges,

Fire Lord Bridges, previously played Wild Bill Wild Bill Hickok

and Wild Bill Hickok, the legend and the man about 30 years previous.

So that's a that's a nice cap of time there.

You know, I watched a lot of Seahunt as a kid for some reason.

Mr. Lord Bridges was in that and good stuff.

Yeah, I have a good time with this movie.

And I watched it since year one of the Cinebeef podcast

when we did a lot of these movies for a one year anniversary.

And I forget who was on that show now, but it was it was a good time

rediscovering this one for this with you fellas.

And man, I gotta say, though, it's it's an efficient movie, too.

I think this is only about but like an hour and a half long, like 98 minutes.

Yeah, I I feel like it could have been longer.

Like I feel like he's I feel I feel like the biggest problem

and why it feels so disjointed at the end, especially as he's trying

to cram too much shit into this.

Like I feel like this is one of the times where Walter Hill needed

a little bit more time to like let some of this stuff breathe a little bit.

Because when you're flashing back to like the past events

that leads them up to Deadwood, they they kind of like pop in really

briefly and pop out too quickly, I feel like.

And I would have liked to see a couple of those things like stretched out a little.

I would I would have liked to see more of the that shot on video opium trip

that he has, which which is just like, oh, Walter.

What are you doing here?

Like I've never seen you really do anything like this before.

This is really cool, but he doesn't have enough of that in the film.

So like honestly, if I wish there was like, you know, you know how we're saying,

like, oh, there's like a like three hour cut of this film

that never got released or whatever.

Like where's the three hour cut of this fucking film?

That I feel like that might have been something.

I'd be down for that.

I think he needed to he'll need to expand more, you know,

on the flashbacks and kind of fleshing those out a little bit more

and a little less of, you know, James Reimar and his gang being like,

come on, Jack, kill him, come on, Jack, kill him.

Like after a while, that goes up.

That's where that third act slog comes comes in. Right.

It just it's a damn near perfect film.

It just it just has some pacing issues in that third act.

It's like the worst sin that it commits, but it's never boring.

It just gets to be a tad bit tedious during the.

Yeah. And if you if you appreciate a hangout movie,

like this is one of the ultimate like hangout

Westerns, basically, where it's a lot of them sitting around talking

more than doing anything and I can get into that.

Like it just goes back to like dirty little billy or something like that,

which is also like a great hangout Western, where it's mostly people

sitting in a room talking for the most part.

But it works, you know, it works on the sort of same level here as that.

Yeah, I totally agree, man, it's it it plays in for 98 minutes.

And, you know, like I say, I wish you James Gamm,

we've had a perfect linchpin for that because you constantly want to tell these

wild bill stories. Now, I feel like started to tell one.

You heard the James Gammon, you know,

narration as as he's shit talking and you seen the the the the video as it happened

and that great I love, you know, the wiped black and white,

you know, video video techniques he was using during the flashbacks.

If you had James Gammon narrating, you know, just shoot the shit

of what happened back in the day, even even if they put bullshit on there,

like, yeah, he shot 50 men and like 50 guys lined up

for him to shoot or something, you know, it would be really stupid.

But, you know, I would laugh at it for a while.

It would just elevate that that legend, you know, that you would see

and like they would see like these dime store, you know, novelizations

of what could have happened with like Billy the Kid or a wild bill

or any of these outlaws, you know, real big, you know, fictional stories

of what would happen there.

And if I had some of that in the movie, you know, more James Gammon, please.

Yeah, yeah. Honestly, like if I had been Walter Hill

and I had more screen time to work with, that's kind of where I would go

with this film, where I'd have more compare and contrast

between a flashback showing the legend as told by the people

who surround Wild Bill and puff up, you know, our height man for his image.

And then Wild Bill actually remembering what happened as, you know,

a counterpoint contextually kind of thing.

And, you know, the real thing, the real thing is, oh, Wild Bill was drunk

and he turned around and and shot his fucking deputy

and had to leave the town in disgrace.

Like you see that, but you don't really get the the bigger,

larger than life story or whatever.

And if they had more of those kind of things like compacted together in the film,

I think I think maybe it would have got more into what Hill was trying to do

with this, where he was trying to like balance the reality versus the myth

and and then play with that kind of thing.

Like I feel like he just loses it a little bit.

But I mean, at the same time, it's still a great film.

It's still got great actors in it that you can just sit back and watch

and, you know, come out of the film not feeling disappointed at all.

So yeah, he was trying to like, you know, balance that bombastic legend

of this this of Wild Bill with the seriousness of this situation.

Like, yeah, I really want to slow it down now because, you know,

by the way, put that mercury in my dick to make me feel better, you know.

And yeah, it just it just let me smoke some of that opium.

And yeah, the opium, you know, you call this film tripping with Wild Bill

because he'd be tripping, man.

He'd be going to the spirit world, seeing all kinds of face pains and stuff.

And it just it just doesn't balance right.

You know, it could have took one of the two opium tripping scenes out

and maybe gave us a little more of that that that hype.

The legend of, you know, what Wild Bill is.

I mean, I know in the last one, it wasn't a complaint.

But it's just the time, the time it took place.

We've talked about Geronimo, you know, it'd been more fun to hear.

We would have been fun to hear more about the legend of Geronimo

and his exploits before, you know, he became associated with the US Army.

But that's not what that film was about.

I mean, this film was more about the end of his life, too.

But at the same time, they're they're hyping up this legend.

And it would have been more fun to see, especially with their use of the flashbacks,

more, more of this legend, you know, this bombastic legend of Wild Bill

and even if in small little cut scenes, because we like some

all through Hill, why wipe scenes?

We've learned this from us. OK, people.

Yeah. And once again, there was no torches in this movie.

Plenty of ours, no torches.

Now, I've already stated, torches is dead to me.

It's fine.

Torches is dead to me.

Yeah, it is.

This is truly last call a torches.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

Only while Bill would listen to, you know, the old California Joe, man,

he told him not to shoot that Indian.

Yeah. But no.

Well, I mean, the Indian was asking for the he wasn't going to let it go.

So. Oh, hell no. No, no.

You know, it's like Robbie Robertson.

This is truly the last waltz until we do it again years later.

You know? And then that's the last waltz.

Yeah.

This is fun, guys.

I dig it.

Maybe it's wrong that it's not right.

I mean, it's wrong in the way it's wrong, but, you know, it is what it is.

I'll kick it to Cameron.

Any final thoughts you'd like to give on this film, sir?

If there's any one of probably two or three movies out of Walter Hills

filmography that I got to recommend is like as far as deep cuts are concerned.

This is one of them.

And it's just as a Western in general.

It's a great storytelling.

It's got a little bit of that third X log, but I can forgive her for that.

It's it's an imperfection, but it's one I can deal with.

It's never boring.

It's got a great cast.

I am missing the right cooter soundtrack.

I kind of wish we would have had a little bit of that, although the soundtrack was really good.

Yeah, Van Dyke Parks, who, yeah, who, you know, was like a songwriting partner

with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.

And actually, he actually arranged the song

"Bare Necessities" from the Jungle Book from 67, too.

Like he did a lot of work in like studio musician stuff and all that kind of stuff.

So, you know, an old time pro in this.

But yeah, yeah, like I said, the soundtrack is great.

The cinematography is great in this.

It's very engaging.

It's never boring.

It's always pleasing to the eye in a million one ways.

Yeah, I can't recommend it enough.

I give it two thumbs up.

I love this movie.

Definitely. Cool, Lee.

Yeah, I think I think, you know, pretty much echo Cameron's thoughts.

I think I pretty much stayed everything I thought about this one.

It's good. It's definitely, you know, as far as, you know, some of these later

Walter Hill films, people kind of they kind of sleep on them

because, you know, they most people just kind of like surface level look and see,

oh, it was a big financial flop.

Like this was a 30 million dollar budget and only did 2.1 million in box office.

So like, yeah, don't let the box office numbers fool you folks.

Yeah, this one's really good.

It is a sleeper hit kind of thing.

Like like Cameron's saying, it's one people overlook and they shouldn't.

It's it's trying to do some interesting stuff.

It's not 100 percent successful, but it's Walter Hill taking like chances

and trying something a little bit out of his wheelhouse

as much as a Western is in his wheelhouse.

He's doing like a revisionist Western and he's trying to play with some things

with it that he hadn't done before.

And I think just on those things alone, it is an interesting

experiment and kind of a success.

And also he's just again, he's pulling an amazing cast of actors.

You want to see do shit and do shit well and they do.

So it's it's worth it just for that alone.

So check it out.

Yeah, all these things, it's a good time.

I mean, I think if they try to go into too much of, you know, real historical stuff,

I mean, that would be like a 1950s, 60s Western in a way, like traditional Western.

You had to be a little more bombastic in the 90s to keep people going.

Even even Unforgiven, you know, was

like a mix of his Yojimbo cowboy with with like his rowdy Yates cowboy in a way.

But but an old man, but it was still a little more extreme than your average

Western that they would have made way back when.

And this pulls it off, you know, with the shootouts and

Jeff Bridges natural charisma and then in any role, really.

And I'm a great supporting cast.

I guess I wish I wish James Gammon was more of a thing in the Walter Hill

universe, but he's he is not and makes me sad a little bit.

It seems like he's just such a gimmie of an actor

that he would have been in more of his shit.

Mm hmm. Oh, my gosh.

But yeah, that's about it for this one.

Next one you'll hear from us will be another we're staying in the West again

with an unfortunately, they're retired now, Bruce Willis

in Last Man Standing with the Great Chris for walking.

And I forget who else it's been a long time.

So watch that one, too. So forgive me.

I know Walken's in it and Bruce Willis is in it.

Bruce Stearns in that one, too. Bruce Stearns in that one, too.

Yeah, too, too, too. Bruce is no waiting.

But that's what you get next is the 1996

Last Man Standing, which I can't believe you this course.

So if I watch it on there for that particular view, speaking of you, Jimbo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not wrong.

I pause there for some stupid reason.

Do not mind me. I'm just stupid, you know.

I thought you were going to say something

while speaking to you, Jimbo, and then I'm like, wait, wait, but you're going to say something.

It's like rectum.

I have some influence on my choice for patriarchs, too.

Oh, OK, nice, nice, nice.

They can tell you yet.

You've got to wait to the actual patriarch episode to find that shit out.

Yeah, speaking of patriotic, you guys haven't done it yet.

Go log in or give your money to the Legion Patreon, patreon.com/LegionPodcasts

patreon.com/LegionPodcasts - Because on the next

Patreon episode of this show, you are going to get what is Lee's choice this time around,

which is John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, and little older Ronnie Howard, and the shootist.

Yeah, we're going to talk about that on the next Patreon and a could be interesting conversation.

So if you haven't done it yet, go do that.

Get all the goodies that that entails.

And thank you for your support either way.

Yeah, but we prefer your money.

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, thoughts and prayers don't go very far.

We need dough. We need dough right me.

Yeah, we got to we got to who's running Legion again now, Kevin.

We need to get company is the money we need to fill his coffers.

Yes, indeed.

To keep this keep this wagon trainer rolling, if you will.

Uh, but with that, this is the end of this episode.

And we'll see you all again on the next episode of Last Call of Torchies.

Yeah, that's about it.

But yeah, I'm fucking tired, guys.

Thanks for listening.

Bye bye. Peace.