Excellent, Without a doubt!!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Stupid cowboy marries a foreigner chick desperate to settle down.Gene Hackman is as good as can be expected, but this story goes nowhere fast with episodic scenes that result to a jumbled collage through a seamless lack of continuity. Some supporting actors are good: Susan Tyrell and Eileen Heckart. Some stink: Joe Santos.Dumb character development includes Hackman being too much of a half-wit to soften up to his new wife (Liv Ullman), and also when he goes on hiatus to San Francisco but decides to return to Ullman bearing gifts and a make-over -- Hackman buys all new clothes except for his hat. He likes that floppy old thing stinking on top of his head.Unnecessary western with a predictable and unsatisfying ending.

Rugged, impolite frontiersman in Old West Northern California is immediately displeased with his mail-order bride when he sees that she has lied about her age; she's overwhelmed with the remoteness of his shack ("a pigsty") and by her new husband's unwashed, ungainly manner. Swedish director Jan Troell attempts to build momentum in this tumultuous relationship, but he does so like a bricklayer. One can practically check off the scenes from a list: the marriage rape, the visit from the old girlfriend, the husband's injury, the wife brushing out her lustrous hair in front of the fire. Troell is not a formulaic filmmaker, yet this nearly plays like a parody of his earlier "The Emigrants" (with a cartoonish Appalachian-flavored score and by-the-numbers male-female relations). Liv Ullmann's English has greatly improved, though she's still not convincing as a woman "from American stock" and her performance is disappointing; Gene Hackman, cast yet again as a snarling sonuvabitch, is somewhat more suited to the surroundings, but his character has no positive attributes (and watching his 'growth' isn't enlightening or surprising). The cinematography by Jordan Cronenweth and Frank M. Holgate is very good, and there are dramatic scene compositions which are intricate and well-realized, but this script is pretty dusty. *1/2 from ****

Overlooked and HIGHLY underrated.Gene Hackman and Liv Ullman are both superb in this film. Gene Hackman's performance is especially noteworthy.I saw ZANDY'S BRIDE years ago, shortly after it was first released. It stuck with me. It's even better than I remembered.I had trouble hunting down a copy as it hasn't been released on DVD. Like another terrific film, THE GREY FOX, a DVD really should be produced. Locating a VHS copy was worth the effort.I definitely recommend checking it out if you are a fan of either actor.

I really enjoyed this movie. It reminds me of some of the romance novels that I've read, especially those by Maggie Osborne. She writes very nice western themed romances. Like hers, this movie starts off with an unlikely pair who fall in love eventually after the usual stuff...cheating, overcoming stubbornness, and so on. Just a nice, entertaining and endearing movie that should be thought of and viewed as just that.