So much average

just watch it!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Lorne Green's Ballad of Waco during the opening credits is very effective in introducing Waco(Howard Keel) as a legendary character, given the chance to redeem himself as sheriff of the notorious Wyoming town(Emporia) where he hailed from. Someone at the prison where he was housed for 5 years must have been sufficiently impressed by his devotion to reading religious material to have him recommended for release by the governor's proclamation, provided he localized himself as sheriff of Emporium, with the goal of cleaning up the crooked gambling, and bringing law and order to the town. As an added bonus, he hoped to marry his sweetheart Jill(Jane Russel) who he hoped had waited for him. But when he arrives, he soon discovers that Jill has married a preacher: ( Wendel Cory, as Sam Stone). Seems that formerly, she had been a wild woman and, like Waco , decided that she needed to get religion. Actually, her husband made that transition some years ago, as he was a member of Quantrill's raiders. Now, Waco is not so sure he wants to stay on as sheriff. The last one(played by Richard Arlen) was shot dead when he tried to snuff out the rowdies inside and outside of Joe Gore's saloon, by ordering the saloon closed. Could Waco do better?.......When Waco arrived by stage, he had a hostile group ready to fill him full of lead as he got off. But he outfoxed them by jumping off the stage before it got to the relay station. He trained his pistol on the 3 from his hiding place. Waco had them disrobe completely. He burned their clothes, and had them ride out of town. In this manor, Waco quickly established his suitability to fill the vacant sheriff position........Waco would face other seemingly impossible odds, such as when he was lured out to the Jenner's ranch, and greeted by a rifle-toting Ma Jenner, who was determined to make him pay for killing one of her sons, some years back. He was nearly branded, but escaped to tussle with the would be brander. But, he still needed the sudden arrival of the deputy sheriff((Gene Evans) to get him out of this situation.....Then, there's the climax scene, where he apparently has to face a consortium of enemies, who will be riding into town, with no backup. His anticipated backups, led by badman Ace Ross(Brian Donlevy), turn tail and leave town when they surmise the odds against their survival.. When Waco strolls out into the street, we see men all over, some low, some high, with rifles pointed at him. We are waiting for someone to shoot him. But, it doesn't happen. Turns out these are men that preacher Sam has convinced that Waco is worth saving. They are actually waiting for the arrival of the mounted would be assassins, including the Jenners, and saloon owner Joe Gore. Quite a shootout results, with the main baddies, including Ma Jenner, biting the dust. Preacher Sam even totes a rifle, and kills an enemy about to shoot Waco. But Sam then strolls out into the middle of the street, and pleads to stop the killing. Not unexpectedly, he is shot dead. Thus, widow Jill is now available for Waco to woo her. She convinces him to stay on as Waco's sheriff........There is the secondary romance between Scotty Moore(Ben Cooper) and Patricia West(Tracy Olson), daughter of the mayor(played by (Robert Lowery). Patricia was characterized as a prude, but is raped by one of the saloon revelers. She cries that she is a ruined woman, and is about to take a job as a saloon girl. But, Waco and Moore finally convince her that she needs to forget the incident and continue as Moore's girlfriend, as we see in the finale.......Some wonder if this film is supposed to be a spoof of westerns, or a conventional western. To me, it's a blend of the two, with the spoof aspects mostly subtle. See it at YouTube.

A who's who of bad B westerns. Watchable only to see who shows up. Plot is blah, writing is tongue in cheek and acting is bearable, almost. Watch the background characters for familiar faces.

Waco is a typically terrible AC Lyles production full of ageing alcoholic actors struggling to read their lines, incompetent choreography where actors hold their hats as they fall over whilst the main plot (recycled the following year in Arizona Bushwackers) consists of a sheriff failing to arrest those who keep trying to kill him.The budget must have been especially low since this one features no outdoor location shots at all (those that exist are obvious bits of stock footage) but does include a pathetically unconvincing sagebrush backcloth which doubles as both a cemetery and a ranch corral.Laugh as director RG Springsteen repeats the same footage every time we see a raucous outside the saloon, John Agar tells Ben Cooper that his girlfriend will get over being raped "in a few days", Wendell Corey slurs his lines and is so visibly drunk that even Springsteen has to cut away before the man starts to topple over after being shot and a film whose morality is such that a man of God has to be killed for no good reason than that the hero wants to cop off with his wife without offending the Hays Code.This was De Forest Kelley's last film before being snapped up for Star Trek and immortality as Dr McCoy. Billed 12th, but with a much bigger part than several of those listed above him (Brian Donlevy gets third place for a five minute cameo), he's actually pretty good as the saloon 'bouncer' who keeps smirking behind Howard Keel's back. Kelley seemed to have done nothing but westerns in the 5-6 years before Star Trek and made a pretty good B western villain. In these movies he stood out possibly because he was one of the few actors sober on set and capable of doing more than read his cue cards !

This is another obscure western that I just watched on Netflix streaming. It stars Howard Keel as Waco, a formerly jailed gunman who's pardoned by the governor and sent to Emporia to tame that town. Unfortunately for him, his former lover Jane Russell is now married to preacher Wendell Corey who was a former gunman himself. I'll stop there and just say that while the triangle that I just described makes some of this oater dramatically compelling, it's not the only exciting part of this movie. There's also the Jenner family who holds a grudge against Waco for killing one of their members and then there's DeForest Kelley who's the bouncer at the local casino who's also anxious to eliminate him. Oh, and there's also a pretty good story-song about the title character as told by Lorne Greene. So on that note, I highly recommend Waco. P.S. Not long after Kelley made this, he would soon become a Sci-Fi icon when he began playing Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy on the original "Star Trek".