Review of The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) by Devon B — 30 Oct 2009

The Sons of Katie Elder starts off strong, but as it nears the end of the first hour, the plot begins to meander away from its strongpoints. John Wayne, Dean Martin, Michael Anderson Jr. and Earl Holliman are four brothers returning to town for their mother's funeral.

John, the eldest, is a gun-slinger who's greeted rather coldly by the town's sheriff. Actually, all four of the brothers are greeted cooly by the entire town, as their mother was one of the town's most beloved citizens and it's obvious her sons weren't there to take care of her in her time of need.

The boys do some investigation and find out their mother was in hard financial straits: their father lost the family ranch in a card game and then died, leaving their mother up the proverbial creek. As the boys do some more investigation, they find more to the story than originally suggested (this angle is similar to that of "Bad Day at Black Rock").

Rather than fully solve the mystery of their parents demise, the boys decide that a fitting memorial to their mother would be to put the youngest brother through college (whether he wants to or not). From here, the plot goes downhill as convenient plot devices lead to coincidences that favor the bad guys every time.

It's not a horrible film though, just disappointing.