Hot Lead & Cold Feet (1978)

          Generic family entertainment from Walt Disney Productions at the nadir of the company’s live-action cycle, Hot Lead & Cold Feet is a farcical Western featuring the unremarkable British comedian/singer Jim Dale in three roles. And while Disney’s concerted effort to transform Dale into a U.S. star was admirable (he was featured in three of the company’s movies from 1977 to 1979), Dale lacks the easy charisma of a genuine box-office attraction, so a triple serving of Dale in Hot Lead & Cold Feet represents too much of a not-so-good thing. In fact, even with his multiple roles, Dale is less interesting than veteran actors Jack Elam, Don Knotts, and Darren McGavin, who play silly supporting characters. The story begins with crusty old varmint Jasper Bloodshy (Dale) announcing that he’s leaving his entire estate—which includes the crime-riddled frontier town that bears his name—to his twin sons. After a fashion, that is. One of the sons is Billy (Dale), a rootin’-tootin’ outlaw who menaces the good (and not-so-good) townsfolk of Bloodshy. The other son is Eli (Dale), a preacher-in-training raised by his mother in England. Billy’s the “hot lead” of the title, and Eli’s the “cold feet.”

          As a means of bringing his sons together, Jasper stipulates that his boys must race each other through the wilderness surrounding the town of Bloodshy, with the winner claiming the family wealth. Billy tries to rig the contest, abetted by the town’s corrupt mayor (McGavin), while Eli simply wants to provide for the pair of orphaned children who are in his care. (Because it wouldn’t be a Disney flick without orphans.) Knotts plays the town’s bumbling sheriff, the so-called “Denver Kid,” and Elam plays his arch-enemy, a crook named “Rattlesnake.” The running gag of these two men trying to stage a gun duel despite constant interruptions is about as close to real humor as this movie gets. Most of the running time comprises goofy Disney slapstick and overly exuberant racing scenes, with a spoonful of saccharine thanks to Eli’s relationships with the kids and with a pretty schoolteacher (Karen Valentine). There’s not a hint of originality or wit anywhere in Hot Lead & Cold Feet, but it’s a harmless enough distraction, with okay production values and energetic acting. Even Dale, who isn’t up to the task of carrying a picture, deserves credit for his hard work—he tries every trick imaginable to entertain viewers, so it’s a shame he can’t conjure screen presence by force of will.

Hot Lead & Cold Feet: FUNKY

Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971)

          Recognizing that there was still an audience for the brand of smart-alecky Old West humor he perfected on the 1957–1962 TV series Maverick, leading man James Garner dove back into cowboy comedy with Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969), a harmless romp about an opportunistic quick-draw artist who becomes the lawman in a frontier town, despite his frequent claims that he’s just passing through. The movie didn’t leave much room for a sequel, since the final scene explained how the characters’ lives turned out, so Garner (whose company produced Sheriff and its sequel) took a novel route—he commissioned an entirely new story, with a fresh set of characters, but then used a similar title and much of the original film’s supporting cast, thereby promising audiences they’d get more of the same. This type of quasi-continuation was not unprecedented, particularly in family movies, because Disney used this technique to elongate several of its live-action franchises, and, indeed, Support Your Local Gunfighter is a G-rated trifle in the Disney vein (although it was a United Artists release).

          Garner plays Latigo Smith, a gambler on the run from a romantic entanglement with an overbearing madam. Hiding out in a mining town, Latigo runs various schemes—e.g., posing as the business representative for a gunfighter (Jack Elam) who isn’t really a gunfighter—but mostly he gets into harmless high jinks with colorful locals. The picture is chipper and fast-paced, with wall-to-wall cartoony music, and veteran character players including Henry Jones, Harry Morgan, and Dub Taylor ensure that everything feels safe and predictable. James Edward Grant’s script has a few witty lines, but the jokes are mostly of the painfully obvious variety. Case in point: The local vet (Taylor) indicates that his current patients are donkeys and says, “You got a pain in the ass, you come see Doc Schultz!” Leading lady Suzanne Pleshette grumbles her way through a drab performance as a tomboy, and Elam’s comedy chops mollify the fact that he’s playing yet another amiable cow-town grotesque. As for the star, Garner’s charm is peerless as always. Unfortunately, there’s not much difference between this picture and an average Maverick episode.

Support Your Local Gunfighter: FUNKY