One of my favorite John Wayne westerns, Andrew V. McLaglen's Chisum, centers around the fact based Lincoln County land war around the late 1800's. This film features John Wayne in the twilight of his remarkable 200+ film career. Playing Chisum, Wayne's no-nonsense attitute fits the title character well. This time, Wayne is up aganist Forrest Tucker who plays Lawrence Murphy, a whealthy land owner who plans to take the town and then take Chisum's land as well. Chisum's neighbor, Henry Tunstall (Patric Knowels) also doesn't like Murphy's plans, and hires a young man to work on his ranch, his name is Billy the Kid (played by Geoffrey Deuel). Chisum, who has heard of him, doesn't exactly approve of him in town at first especially since Billy the Kid has an eye for his niece Sally (Pamela McMyler). Chisum eventually begins to like Billy right when he starts killing several of the town's deputies and Murphy's handymen, this is right when the war starts. Chisum has a handful of action and adventure sequences and wonderful cinematography by William H. Clothier and a fine western/adventure music score by Dominic Frontiere. The all star cast also includes John Wayne regulars- Ben Johnson as Chisum's sidekick, Bruce Cabot playing the sheriff who handles Murphy's dirty work, Andrew Prine playing Chisum's lawyer, Glenn Corbett turns in a fine job as playing Pat Garrett and Christopher George and Richard Jaeckel turn in their usual cowboy villians as the bounty hunters. George's wife, then Lynda Day also makes a small appearance as Andrew Prine's wife. Also look for small roles by John Agar and Christopher Mitchum.
