Tag: western

Place of Bones

  By

★★★½
“Grave encounters.”

I’ve followed director Cummings since we screened her debut feature Berkshire County, at our film festival. Here, we reviewed the impressive She Never Died in 2019. Both films were distinctly horror-tinged, so it was a bit of a surprise to see her attached to what seemed a Western period piece. Having watched it… let’s just say, things make more sense now. For right at the very end, the film takes an abrupt turn into darkness, that may remind the viewer of Bone Tomahawk – albeit nowhere near as graphic. I’ll say no more than that, except: well played. Things unfold in a remote part of the West, where Pandora (Graham) is bringing up her daughter Hester (Robillard) after the death of her husband. 

Their isolated life is disrupted when Hester finds a badly injured man near the cabin. This is Calhoun (Nemec), who also has two saddle-bags of money, the proceeds of a bank robbery. Calhoun subsequently had a violent falling-out with his accomplices. However, Bear John (Hopper), the brother of one of the deceased criminals, is growing concerned about his sibling’s disappearance, and is closing in on Pandora’s cabin. It’s going to be up to her, a crippled robber and a teenage girl to withstand an inevitable assault from career criminals, with limited resources in the way of arms and ammunition. On the positive side, it’s clear from the way Pandora deals with Calhoun, that she is not somebody who should be taken lightly or underestimated. 

This is definitely a slow burn. The first hour is more concerned with depicting the life of Pandora and Hester, along with how Calhoun’s arrival changes things. Though I have to say, after how the film shifts at the end, you’ll find yourself viewing these early interactions in a very different light. Bear John doesn’t even arrive on screen until well into the movie, in a well-handled scene which does a good job of depicting his gang and their relationships. Thereafter, there’s a looming sense of threat, with a ticking clock of escalating tension as the cabin’s inhabitants try to get ready for the violence to come. Again, without revealing too much, mother and daughter may be more ready for this than they seem.

I do admire movies where you reach the end and are forced to reassess everything that has gone before. Even the title takes on a different meaning by the time the end credits roll. This certainly helps a film which, otherwise, would be a fairly generic Western siege pic. Graham has always tended to be under-rated, and it’s nice to see her get a chance to exercise her acting talent. Nemec is a good foil, and their interplay helped guide my interest through a fairly languid first two-thirds. Once things kick off, the pace ups considerably and by the end there’s little doubt it deserves inclusion here. It may still be a little too horrific for Western fans, and too Western for horror fans. Yet if you like both, this is an interesting combination. 

Dir: Audrey Cummings
Star: Heather Graham, Corin Nemec, Brielle Robillard, Tom Hopper

Avenging Angels: Vengeance Trail, by A. W. Hart

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆

Published in 2019, this is the opening volume of Wolfpack Publishing’s Avenging Angels series. My wife Barb and I had previously read the seventh and second installments out of order (long story!); and having really liked those, we recently decided to commit to reading the series. This one takes us to the very beginning of the titular “avenging angels'” adventures.

The Bass twins, George Washington (nicknamed “Reno”) and Sara, were 16 in the fall of 1865, just after the Civil War, when they returned home from school and found their western Kansas homestead burned and their parents and three older siblings dead or dying, murdered by a band of vengeful renegade ex-Confederates. (Their sister had also been gang raped.) Before he died, their father charged them to avenge that slaughter. This book is the story of that quest and its outcome (hence the title). “A. W. Hart” is a house pen name; all of the books of the series have different actual authors. Here, the writer was Peter Brandvold, who grew up as a Western fan in the 60s and 70s and went on to write over 100 Western novels, under his own name or his “Frank Leslie” pen name. (Neither Barb nor I had any prior experience with his work.)

There are a couple of significant continuity issues between this volume and the later ones, though these aren’t Brandvold’s fault. Starting in the second book, our hero’s and heroine’s promise to their father is said to have explicitly included a charge to continue to hunt down and rid the earth of other evil-doers, even after justice was served on the original villains. That’s not at all clear and explicit here. At the end of this book, their resolution to make their quest a continuing one is said to be their own decision, a response to an emotional need of their own. And in the seventh book (and possibly others earlier), the late John Bass is described as having been a Lutheran pastor. In this book, while he’s said to have been a God-fearing person who raised his kids to be familiar with the Bible, there’s no hint that he was a clergyman of any kind. IMO, on both points, the portrayal here is more plausible and realistic.

However, there are definite flaws in Brandvold’s craftsmanship here, starting with chronology. John Bass served in the Mexican War, after which he married and settled in Kansas. The Bass family graveyard on the homestead is said to hold the remains of an infant sibling who died over 20 years before 1865 –in other words, before 1845, and the Bass twins would have been born ca. 1849. But the Mexican War was fought from 1846-1848. There isn’t time between Feb. 1848 and the end of 1849 to fit in John Bass’ post-war activity, subsequent courtship and marriage, the couple’s move to Kansas, and four pregnancies prior to Reno and Sara. (And Kansas was not even opened for settlement until 1854.) If his general knowledge of U.S. history didn’t furnish red flags here, very basic research would have precluded these kinds of mistakes.

Editing and proofreading here is poor. Brandvold loses the thread of which character is speaking in one key conversation; he can’t make up his mind whether two or three antagonists are positioned in one spot during a gun fight, and near the end, a character’s last name unaccountably changes from Hill to Stock in the space of two pages. The third-person narrative is consistently from Reno’s viewpoint, but in the earlier chapters it incorporates gunslinger’s slang (thankfully abandoned later) that a peaceful teenage farm boy would be unlikely to be acquainted with. Near the end, conduct by two of the villains is inconsistent with their group’s overall plan. There are other logistical and editorial quibbles that could be made as well.

Both Sara and another important female character, Isabelle Mando, act out of character, or unrealistically for the situation, in one place (though not in the same place). Sara’s character, in particular, comes across as less winsome here than it does in the two later books we read. Of the two twins, she’s always been the more enduringly angry and vindictive over her family’s tragedy, the more aloof and self-contained, and the more ruthless and readily inured to violence. Here, though, she has a readiness to execute even disabled and helpless adversaries that alarms Reno, and at the same time a willingness to ignore a rape attempt on someone else as none of her business. (Thankfully for the victim, Reno didn’t share that indifference.) At one point, Reno was feeling a genuine concern for the state of Sara’s soul, and a resolution to try to influence her for the better. But later, he’s surprised and puzzled when Sara expresses a concern about her own spiritual state; and that theme is never developed any further, just forgotten and left hanging. Brandvold is undeniably a prolific writer; but he comes across to me as a careless and hasty one who sacrifices quality to quantity.

While the main characters here are Christians, and there’s a definite theme of good vs. evil, with the idea that God sides with the former and against the latter, none of the series writers are necessarily Christians themselves as far as I know. Bible verses serve as epigraph and postscript, and are quoted at times in the text; but there’s no real presentation of the gospel of grace and mercy, and not much wrestling with the Christian ethics of lethal force in a fallen world. Despite the teen protagonists, this is not really YA fiction either; it’s a very violent book, with a high body count. (It is, however, free of sexual content, beyond some references to scantily-clad chorus girls in a frontier music hall, and has very little bad language.) There’s a chaste romance which some readers will see as marred by an insta-love factor; but in the cultural context, I wasn’t bothered by the latter, and for me it’s a plus that it’s inter-racial. (Positive portrayal of half-Lakota characters and a black character do Brandvold credit.)

While I didn’t rate this book as highly as the two later ones, Barb and I still plan to continue with the series. It won’t disappoint genre fans who like a heavy dose of gun-fighting action.

Author: A. W. Hart.
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a print book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Girl with a Gun: An Annie Oakley Historical Mystery, by Kari Bovee

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

This is an interesting idea. Take a real-life historical action heroine, whose life provides the underlying framework, and write a fictional story around that. Obviously, Annie Oakley really existed, and the broad strokes of her life here are accurate. If you’ve read our article on her, you will already know she did indeed take part in a shooting contest against famed marksman Frank Butler. That helped win her a spot on Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, with which she traveled both the United States and the world, amazing crowds with her markswomanship. The book adheres to these elements faithfully.

However, there’s a lot more going on here, which Bovee has added in. Almost as soon as Annie starts working for the show, her tent-mate, a young Indian woman, turns up dead. She is not the last corpse to do so, and there are no shortage of suspects in the crimes being committed either. The show’s manager, Mr. LeFleur, who seems to carry a torch for Annie. Twila Midnight, a medicine woman of mysterious origins, who conversely, has a passionate dislike for the heroine. Vernon McCrimmon, with whom Annie had crossed swords in the past – ending badly for him. Or possibly even Frank Butler, whose skills are failing him, with Oakley taking over as the show’s top attraction, or Buffalo Bill himself, who has skeletons in his own closet.

It’s likely not much of a spoiler to rule out the figures who actually existed like Butler, but Bovee does a decent job of keeping you guessing among the other characters. The evidence points one way, then the other, before things come to a head after an attempt is made on Annie’s life. This is only foiled due to the hedonistic tendencies of her replacement tent-mate. I think it probably works better as a whodunnit, rather than as an action story. Though there are plenty of rounds fired over the course of the book, these are almost entirely in the show’s arena, and the descriptions don’t generate a great deal of energy. You are instead left with a sense that perhaps you needed to be there.

This is a fairly straightforward story, with a generally good sense of historical time and place, capturing 1885 in the mid-West. Though I was amused by Twila saying, “His fever is high. It may be a virus,” since the first virus was not discovered and isolated by science until 1892. There’s not an enormous amount of complexity to Annie’s character here either. She’s relentlessly good-hearted, even to people who really do not deserve her kindness. But that’s part of her heroic nature, I guess, and Annie’s desire to provide for her family, as well as her loyalty to her horse, Buck, who also comes under threat, make for admirable qualities. I’d call this a solid read, which doesn’t seek to push the envelope, and if not aiming high, does hit most of its targets. D’you see what I did there?

Author: Kari Bovee
Publisher: Bosque Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 3 in the Annie Oakley Mystery series.

Calamity Jane

  By

★★★
“Calamity Plain.”

Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok are two of the most well-known names in the culture of the Wild West, though the reality of both individuals is almost impossible to separate from the myths which surround them. So it’s kinda pointless to complain about historical accuracy in films which focus on them. Better just accept them as effectively being fictional entities, which can be used for whatever purpose a filmmaker desires. Here, it’s the death of Wild Bill (Stephen Amell, best known as TV’s Arrow) in a poker game, which sets his girlfriend Jane (Rickards, also from the same series) off. She goes on the trail of Jack McCall (Allon), the scumbag responsible, who has understandably opted to depart Deadwood. 

Complicating matters is that Jane is in custody herself, having been brought to the frontier town by Sheriff Mason (Rozen), to stand trial for murder. She escapes his custody – as Chris pointed out, Mason is a bit crap at the whole law enforcement thing – and heads off after McCall and his equally scummy brother. Mason assembles a (again, rather feeble and unimpressive) posse to go after the two suspected killers. Most of the second half is an extended pursuit through some very scenic landscapes, it must be said. There are a fair number of moderate diversions before the inevitable and entirely expected confrontation between Jane and Jack, as she seeks to get vengeance, or perhaps justice, for her murdered lover.

I think I like the characters here most. Rickards gives a winning portrayal as Jane, despite an unnerving similarity to one of the members of Bananarama (perhaps that’s just me though), and the supporting cast also do a good job of inhabiting their roles. It is fairly straightforward: black hats and white hats, with not much grey in terms of morality. In this way, it feels like a throwback to an earlier time. Along similar lines, while the language is fairly ripe, with a good number of F-bombs, the violence is very restrained by comparison. I feel if a film is going to have an R-rating, the makers need to embrace that artistic freedom fully, yet outside of the cursing, this would likely merit only a PG. 

Among the supporting cast, the best is Abigail (Faia), who is entirely mad, and all the more entertaining for it. She boasts of the multiple people she’s killed, keeping a count with scars on her arms – I’d love to see a film of her back-story. She and Jane end up in a very nasty brawl, likely the action highlight of the film, with everything else being gunfights of the “Bang-bang, you’re dead” variety. While it’s all well enough assembled, there isn’t much indication of ambition or desire to tell a new story, or even an old one from an interesting direction. As a result, this only intermittently catches fire, preferring mostly to meander along safely, well within the speed limit and with its seat-belt securely fastened.

Dir: Terry Miles
Star: Emily Bett Rickards, Tim Rozon, Primo Allon, Priscilla Faia

Good Ol Girl

  By

★★★
“It’s… complicated.”

This documentary takes a look into the lives of three women in Texas, who are all operating in the male-dominated world of ranching. Some were born into it, while others came to it through choice. In particular, Mandy Dauses falls into the latter category, having left her East-coast home because she felt that Texas represented the best chance to fulfill her ambition of becoming a ranch manager. On the other hand, Sara Lemoine Knox is struggling to balance what she feels is an obligation to carry on in the family business, with her own goal of becoming a lawyer. Meanwhile, Martha Santos is looking to find work in that line, but without her own property, is finding it a challenge.

It’s a way of life which is gradually becoming more endangered for both men and women. For example, Martha’s family used to own land near Laredo, but they sold it to satisfy the ever-increasing appetite for land on which homes and businesses could be built. Similarly, Sara’s heart really isn’t in farming, even though she was given her first property, covering 160 acres, at the age of 12. Even beyond their chosen (or imposed) profession, they have other ambitions. Mandy desperately wants to start a family, but at age 37, time is running out for her. Though during the course of the documentary, she does discover she is pregnant. These are all imperfect lives, and that’s probably the point, offering an non-idealized take that’s radically different from the fictional, romantic version of cowgirls.

Dauses likely represents the most interesting and complex of the characters. On the one hand, she’s clearly a strong, independent woman, who moved half-way across American in pursuit of her dreams. On the other, she still cooks dinner for her long-term boyfriend, John, who expects a meal to be ready on the table when he comes home (regardless of the fact that she has her own job, too). Outside of the story of her pregnancy, however, there is not much sense of development. This is more a snapshot of the three women’s lives at this moment in time, without any narrative. When the end credits roll, nobody is particularly in a different place from there they were at the beginning.

This is not to say there’s any need for forced drama, but there’s not even much sense of time passing. Contrast, say, documentary series Clarkson’s Farm, which had a much more compelling narrative, simply through covering an entire year. Of course, it had the advantage of more time to tell its story, but the dramatic moments here, such as coming across a dead cow in the middle of giving birth, have no particular emotional resonance. Instead, it’s most interesting when you are shown the difficult task the women have to balance the various forces (internal or external) in their lives, looking to achieve harmony. The film probably needed to do a better job of that itself, if it wanted to have a lasting impact.

Dir: Sarah Brennan Kolb
Star: Mandy Dauses, Sara Lemoine Knox, Martha Santos, Joyce Gibson Roach

The Guns of Fort Petticoat

  By

★★★
“Skirts vs. ‘skins”

This is one where you need to take the era into account. Made in 1957, this was based on a short story from a couple of years earlier: “Petticoat Brigade” by Chester William Harrison. It’s very much an Audie Murphy movie – and understandably so, since the man was a bona fide hero, being one of the most-decorated American combat soldiers in World War II, before he became an actor. But the fifties was not a decade known for strong, independent female characters in Hollywood Westerns. We’ve covered a few: Woman They Almost Lynched and Johnny Guitar are likely the best. However, this works mostly because of the matter-of-fact way in which it depicts them, in contrast to the other example where they’re portrayed as unusual.

It takes place in 1864, when Lt. Frank Hewitt (Murphy) is part of the Union forces in the American Civil War. However, hearing of Indians going on the warpath towards his native Texas, he heads back to his home there, to warn the locals. They’re not too happy to see him – his town being on the Confederate side of the conflict – but they are eventually convinced of the problem. With no safe sanctuary to hand, they seek refuge in the local mission, which offers the only defensible sanctuary. A bigger issue then arises: almost all the adult men are away, fighting in the war. So it’s up to Hewitt, to wrangle the plucky but largely untrained women who remain, into a force capable of repelling the marauding natives.

While it’s a fairly boilerplate story, it’s delivered with a fair amount of nuance. The Union/Confederate situation is handled with moderation, and it’s even made clear that the Native Americans are a spectrum, from peaceful to warlike. The women, similarly, are a good range of characters, most of whom are willing to fight – and in some cases, die – in defense of their town. They range from a religious pacifist, to my personal favourite, Hannah Lacey (Emerson), whom Hewitt appoints as his second-in-command. She proclaims herself as good as “any three men” on a number of occasions, and appears to have the strength and skills to back up that claim. The likes of Hannah make up for odd missteps, like Hewitt turning one of the woman over his knee to spank her!

Naturally, there’s a slice of romance, with Hewitt meeting, once again, Anne Martin (Grant). She’s the sweetheart whom he left to join the army, only for her to marry another man, not long after his departure. They do the inevitable bickering before falling back in love. However this, and a rather contrived finale where the hero is miraculously saved from being hung for desertion, aren’t enough to derail what’s a solid and enjoyable Western adventure, one made before I was born. It manages to uplift its female characters rather than patronize them, yet never lets the message of empowerment get in the way of being entertaining.

Dir: George Marshall
Star: Audie Murphy, Kathryn Grant, Hope Emerson, Jeanette Nolan

Homestead

  By

★★★
“Home on the (gun-)range”

This one does take a while to reach the necessary threshold: probably only truly qualifies for the final twenty minutes or so, though it does talk a good game until that point. Also, it’s a decent enough combination of Western and home-invasion genres to that point, to pass muster. Nothing special, mind you. It just knows its limitations and is careful enough to work within them. It takes place in the Old West. whee Beth (Bernadette) and her twin children, Brian and Irene (Betsy) now live with her new husband, Robert (Krause). The trio appear to have escaped an abusive relationship, and it’s not long after a railroad surveyor pays a visit, before Irene is cheerfully telling him, she’s going to go back and kill her father some day.

Turns out she doesn’t have to wait that long to carve some notches on her gun-belt. Because the “surveyor” is actually the advance scout for a gang of outlaws. for Robert wasn’t exactly an angel in his previous life either. He was part of a gang led by Ezekiel (Scurlock) and absconded with their loot. This bit of treachery has finally caught up with him, an his old associates are now ready to make him cough up the location of what they consider their rightful, if ill-gotten gains. They arrive one night, taking the family hostage in an effort to use them against Robert. However, they’ve forgotten about Beth, who has clearly had enough of this male nonsense, and in particular. Irene, who embraces wholeheartedly the opportunity to get some practice in for her future paternal reunion.

As mentioned, we do have to take a detour before the distaff side of the family take centre-stage. Robert and Brian are more or less useless. The former’s efforts to negotiate with his former pals go about as well as you would expect, and Brian is just no good for anything, especially after getting shot in the leg. This is retaliation for his sister stabbing one of the outlaws in the foot: in hindsight, they would have been much better off shooting Irene, considering she is the one who causes them no end of trouble, the deeper we get into the movie.

Eventually, for different reasons, Robert and Brian are no longer of significance, with first Beth and then Irene, finally getting the chance to show it was a fate mistake to overlook them. It’s a very good example of firearms as an equalizer. In a physical fight, they’d have no chance against men who are clearly much larger and more powerful. However, with a gun in their hand, and a steely resolve to use it in defense of their own survival, then strength is no longer a factor. How things unfold is mostly quite predictable, to be honest, yet is done with a reasonable amount of energy. and helped by performances which all feel like they are on the same page dramatically. All told, the ending justifies the means, I’d say.

Dir: Ehrland Hollingsworth
Star: Betsy Sligh, Jamie Bernadette, Brian Krause, Scot Scurlock

Injun

  By

★½
“I Spit on Your Movie.”

I never thought I’d find a film which would leave me yearning for the subtle and understated pleasures of the original I Spit on Your Grave, but here we are. 35 years on, and this cringeworthy copy was made, transplanting events to the old West. A further decade later: with a couple of re-titlings which jostle each other for inappropriateness, it’s out on a number of free movie streaming platforms. I’m here to tell you, not to bother. Even in the low-rent neighbourhood which is rape-revenge movies, you could close your eyes, pick a random entry, and be almost guaranteed to find something with a better script and general execution.

It begins on a bizarrely integrated farm, I’m guessing at some point after the end of the Civil War. Comanche adopted white girl Ana (Sawyer) lives there with her native American husband and their son, plus a Hispanic woman, a black guy and a geezer in glasses. Their names are not important. For onto the ranch ride six escaped convicts, led by former Confederate officer Jeb (Herrick). After some ominous banter with geezer in glasses, they kill everyone – told you their names weren’t important – except for Ana who is merely gang-raped, staked out and left for dead. Fortunately for her, she’s rescued by a conveniently passing man called Barfly (Neff). Nursed back to health over what must be a period of several hours, she sets out for revenge against the six escapees, who inexplicably decided to hang around the ranch.

You know me: I’m not exactly one to complain about questionable stereotypes. But even I had to wince on a number of occasions. It might have been Jeb’s Mexican sidekick, Chico (Venture), who sports an F-sized sombrero and droopy mustache. It might have been Ana’s squaw cosplay and whooping war-dance. It might have been the original title, with its even more dubious poster and tagline: “Payback’s an Indian bitch!” I’m all in favour of political incorrectness in order to make a point, or even simply to trigger certain folk. I get the feeling though, that everything here was done out of sheer ignorance. As such, this is no fun at all.

If you’re going to knock off I Spit on Your Grave so blatantly (down to there being a mentally-challenged member among the rapists), then you really need to put more effort into it. The rape here is a scoop of vanilla ice-cream compared to the intensity of the original. The revenge has almost no impact either, with third-rate special effects: the “scalping” is particularly unimpressive. Oh, hey: rather than cutting someone’s genitals off, she sets fire to them. That’s what passes for imagination and innovation here. The performances just about pass muster: indeed, there’s likely too much of them, especially with the gang sitting around the farmhouse and jawing, as their numbers steadily shrink. Your interest and attention will likely suffer a similar fate.

Dir: Bob Cook
Star: Amanda Elizabeth Sawyer, Robert Herrick, Tony Venture, Greg Neff
a.k.a. Scalped! or I Spit on Your Tombstone

Avenging Angels: Sinner’s Gold, by K. W. Jeter

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Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

“A. W. Hart,” the nominal author of the Avenging Angels series, is actually a house pen name used by Wolfpack Publishing for the multiple authors of this and one or two of their other series. Where books are marketed or shelved by the author’s name, this device allows a series to be kept together. It also makes it possible for the same main character(s) to be featured in a number of adventures, without being limited to the imagination or time constraints of a single author.

If one dogmatically maintains that worthwhile creative art, by definition, can be created only by individual genius operating in total independence of any collaboration, then this won’t be viewed as worthwhile creative art. (Neither will the music of Gilbert and Sullivan, the art of Currier and Ives, or the novels of Nordhoff and Hall, to cite only a few examples.) This is more of a collaborative effort, building on a common foundation. While it requires, and gives scope for, individual creativity, it also sets the challenge to that creativity of operating in fidelity to the foundation, rather than creating contradictions to it. In the two Avenging Angels books I’ve read, I felt the challenge was met; in both books, the main characters are consistent.

Barb and I encountered this series before only in its seventh installment, Avenging Angels: The Wine of Violence, because the actual author of that one is my Goodreads friend Charles Allen Gramlich. We’d intended to read that one as a stand-alone (both of these books, and presumably the others, can be read that way, since the reader is filled in quickly and simply on the basic set-up and premise of the series in each one and each adventure is self-contained and episodic). By a happy serendipity, however, things worked out for me to purchase this second installment, and we took a chance on it. (It didn’t disappoint!)

As series fans, or readers of my previous review, already know, our main characters and titular “Avenging Angels” here are twins George Washington “Reno” and Sara Bass, still in their later teens, the God-fearing son and daughter of a Lutheran pastor in Kansas. They were 16 in the late spring or early summer of 1865, just after the Civil War, when while they were out hunting, their parents and siblings were massacred by a band of renegade ex-Confederates. The first book (which I haven’t read) describes that incident, how they promised their dying father that they would take on the mission of avenging the slaughter and ridding the world of other lowlifes who prey on the innocent, and how they served justice on the murderers. This book mentions that before doing that, they spent several months under the tutelage of their father’s friend Ty Mandell, learning and honing their formidable gun skills; it’s now summer again, so I’d say we’re into 1866, and they’re about 17.

It’s also mentioned that George got his nickname “Reno” from his dad, after an officer the older Bass had served with in the Mexican War and admired; the author doesn’t state this explicitly, but that would be Jesse L. Reno, who later became a Union general in the Civil War, and was killed in battle in 1862. In the early part of this book, we’re shown how circumstances shaped their decision to become bounty hunters, as a way of supporting themselves while fulfilling their ongoing vow. That decision will soon have them heading to the town of Hatchet, Nebraska to collect their first bounties, along with rather mysterious, 30-something Brenda Walon, who’s on her way to the same place, where an old friend has died and Brenda is named in her will. But Hatchet doesn’t prove to be a welcoming place; mystery and danger await, and this volume will deliver Western action aplenty.

For this book, the real author is Wayne D. Dundee (he’s credited on the back page), a seasoned author of Westerns, mysteries and other genre fiction. His prose is more clunky and plodding than Gramlich’s, with a tendency to frequently explain the obvious. However, the novel is well-plotted (the resolution in the last part, IMO, was quite brilliant –it came as a surprise, but ultimately struck me as perfect) and the characterizations are skillful. Dundee handles action scenes believably and capably, with a high body count but no unnecessary “pornography of violence.” There are no particularly deep themes here, but there are some good messages Bad language of the h- and d-word sort and religious profanity is more common here than in the installment I read earlier, but still a bit restrained; there’s no explicit sex, though there are references to illicit sex, including the brothel that formerly operated in the town.

Action heroine fans will find Sara as deadly as Reno is, and will appreciate both this novel and, probably, any of those in the series.

Author: A. W. Hart
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch

  By

★★★
“Civil War of the Sexes”

This sprightly TV movie from 1982 boasts a rather decent cast and, at least in the first half, manages to go in unexpected and interesting direction. It does end up descending into rather familiar territory thereafter, and the finale doesn’t manage to be as rousing as it should be. Yet it managed to keep my interest, and as this genre goes, that probably makes it better than average. It takes place in the last stages of the American Civil War, when the Southern women of Sweetwater have been left bereft of men, after the Confederate Army has recruited them all to their cause. Newly arrived in town is doctor Maggie McCulloch (Barnes), who has arrived to help her ailing aunt, Annie (Collins). She is shocked to discover Annie is less the mine owner touted in her letters, and more the owner of the town brothel.

With the men out of the picture, the local townswomen try to drive Annie and her business out of town, only to find the madam is made of sterner stuff. Such petty grievances are set aside with the arrival of Union forces under Colonel Samuel Isaacs (Duff), who demands Maggie’s services to help his injured son, Frank (former teen heart-throb, Donny Osmond!). Leaving Frank behind to take care of business elsewhere, the Colonel promises to leave the town alone if Frank is saved, though Confederate surgeon John Cain (Horsley) doubts he’ll keep his word. The women of Sweetwater need to be formed into a fighting unit capable of repelling Isaacs and his men if they return with ill intent.

From a modern perspective, perhaps the most unusual thing is seeing the Union soldiers (with the exception of Frank) portrayed as the villains of the piece. These days, the Confederate flag is basically the same thing as the swastika, yet the movie seems perfectly happy to accept that there were basically decent people on both sides. Pointedly, at the end, nobody mentions who won the war, because that’s not important – just that it’s over. Though on the other hand, there is literally not a single non-Caucasian in the entire movie. It’s flat-out impossible to imagine any depiction of the Civil War like this being made nowadays, making it a period piece almost as much as the era it represents.

That aside, the plot unfolds largely as you’d expect. There’s the initial tension between whores and housewives, and the women struggle to come to terms with the everyday business of running the town. For example, there’s a fire drill, which ends up with half the ladies thrashing around in shallow water, and some other slapstick involving whitewash, that is somewhere between lightly amusing and embarrassing. However, Barnes – at the time a sitcom star in Three’s Company – does a very good job of keeping the film grounded, and the supporting cast help admirably in that aspect. Collins is particularly good, projecting an attitude which clearly proclaims she will take no shit from anyone.

Inevitably, there’s the expected romance between Maggie and John, and the latter slowly succeeds in getting the townsfolk from literally falling over when they fire their weapons, to a reasonable degree of competence. On the one hand, it is implausible that civilians could defeat trained and experienced soldiers in a firefight. However, they don’t have to win, just make the situation unpleasant enough the Colonel decides it’s not worth it, and moves on. That perhaps happens rather too quickly, and the film might have benefited from devoting less time to the romantic aspects, in order to give us a more satisfying finale.

Obviously, given the medium, it’s never quite going to be able to live up to a title which feels considerably more “mature viewer” than the content here ever reaches. However, considering the limitations, it wisely concentrates on the dramatic elements, and that’s when it comes admirably close to being, not just a “real movie”, but a good one at that.

Dir: Philip Leacock
Star: Priscilla Barnes, Lee Horsley, Joan Collins, Howard Duff