The Sons of Katie Elder
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Movie Reviews of The Sons of Katie Elder
Movie Review: Imagination
Summary: 4 Stars
The mystery of Katie Elder and her husband may have come from American history. Doc Holiday had a lady friend named "Big Nose Kate Elder"I have often wondered if that had anything to do with this film.
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Movie Review: the movie
Summary: 4 Stars
I like a good John Wayne shoot em up movie, which this is not. Except at the end when it starts to get good. All the Sons are killed except Wayne
and blows up the bad guy.
Movie Review: Great Classic Western
Summary: 4 Stars
This was a birthday gift for my brother and he was so happy. The quality was good and we really enjoyed watching the DukeMovie Review: From the four winds four brothers came... Their eyes smoking and their fingers itching...,
Summary: 3 Stars
Katie Elder bore four sons... The day she was buried they all return to the Texas town of Clearwater to pay their last respects...
John (John Wayne) is the oldest, the toughest, the gunfighter... Texas, its bigness and its violence echoes in his empty soul... Tom (Dean Martin) is a different breed of hombre... He is good with a deck of cards and good with a gun--when he has to be... Matt (Earl Holliman) is the quiet one... Nobody ever called him yellow--twice... Bud (Michael Anderson, Jr.) is the youngest, but he is the rebel one...
At the funeral are Sheriff Billy Wilson (Paul Fix) and his grim young deputy, Ben Latta (Jeremy Slate) who's real conscientious about his job... Also at the burial, in addition to many townspeople, is the young Mary Gordon (Martha Hyer), the woman who tries the impossible...
Mary visits the four brothers, brings them food, and is sardonic about their desertion of their mother... Only Bud, who has been going to college, shows a possibility of becoming a fine, respecting young man...
As the brothers investigate into the past and present circumstances of their mother's life, they find the old place is no longer hers and that she was penniless...
John discovers that his father supposedly gambled away the ranch when he was pretty drunk and that on the same night he was shot in the back...The only witnesses are Morgan Hastings (James Gregory) and his son Dave (Dennis Hopper)... The sheriff warns the Elders to stop digging around and to stay out of trouble...
Realizing that the only tribute to Ma Elder would be for Bud to finish college, the brothers pledge themselves to that cause... Yet they feel the loss of the ranch was under peculiar circumstances, they decide to find out the truth...
Henry Hathaway was one of the great versatile directors whose Westerns have been as variable in quality as his other films...
Hathaway's strong points were atmosphere, character and authentic locations... In "The Sons of Katie Elder" he took particular care with locations, proud of the fact that he is one of the few directors who handle their own second-unit work, and when this element combines successfully with the other two the result can be impressive indeed...
Movie Review: I Always Chuckle
Summary: 3 Stars
John Wayne had 30-plus years over Michael Anderson, Jr., and was about 20 years the senior of Earl Holliman. And we're supposed to believe the Duke is their big bro? That's why I chuckle every time I come across THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER on one of the cable channels. Wayne, playing eldest Elder son John (the gunfighter, of course), is about as believable an older sibling to Holliman, Anderson, and Dean Martin (playing second son Tom, the gambler, of course) as Lorne Greene was as papa to his Bonanza offspring. It's a nutty distraction, yet still for Duke fans THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER delivers a good ol' fashioned shoot-'em-up Western.
As the four Elder sons reunite for the first time in years for their mother's funeral they sense something is awry in Katie's dusty Texas town. Their mother died penniless, while their father, Bass (great name), allegedly lost the Elder Ranch in a card game. Naturally--and against the express wishes of the town sheriff (venerable character actor Paul Fix)--the brothers do some investigating, only to be framed for murder, then ultimately (and predictably) face a showdown with entrepreneur Morgan Hastings (James Gregory), the villain who stole their parents' ranch. Dennis Hopper and George Kennedy stand out from the rest of the supporting cast (they always do), the ending (in keeping with the Duke tradition) is over the top, and THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER makes its mark as one of Wayne's most memorable films. Despite all the chuckles.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning