On
the first Saturday in May 1960, CBS aired a very funny 55-minute
send-up of a television western starring Phil Silvers and Jack Benny,
The Slowest Gun In The West. Written and produced by Nat
Hiken—following his success
of The Phil Silvers Show—and
directed by Herschel Daugherty, the story centers on Silvers,
Fletcher Bissell III, aka The Silver Dollar Kid, who is the slowest
gun in the west outside Benny, as Chicken “Chick” Finsterwald.
Both frightened by even the hint of violence, they have been bluffing
their way through the old west to stay alive. In many ways, it is a variation on Silvers' signature character, Sgt. Bilko. Like Don Knotts' Barney Fife to follow, the Bilko role defined his career. After the opening's
brilliant set-up and humorous script, the movie drags a bit with
gratuitous canned laughter not helping. For Benny's part, he appears
to be reusing a skit from his own show. These two are the designated
funny men with the balance of the cast featuring Bruce Cabot, Ted de
Corsia, Robert Wilke, Jean Willes, Jack Elam, and Lee Van Cleef,
among others, playing it straight. It is a hoot to watch in all its
absurdity. Unfortunately, online prints are of terrible quality.
Conrad
Salinger's opening folk ballad, The Silver Dollar Kid,
suggests a number of early television westerns, this time featuring a
lone rider on a ridge. Sung by the pop-folk duo of Bud and Travis,
complete with an acoustic guitar, it appears to be a potential
classic prime-time western. Cleverly, the story flashes forward to modern day as an ancestor recalls the
town's darkest days to a vacationing family. In 1878, Primrose,
Arizona was the roughest town in the west and with another wavy-screen flashback, Silvers sashays through the saloon doors decked-out in
shiny black leather...and black-rimmed eyeglasses. It is a burst-out laughing moment even without the canned laughter. The Kid talks in an angry disposition, and the saloon patrons are wary of the
mysterious man in black. The initial confrontation with de Corsia,
the town's fastest gun, is beautifully played out. Proving just how
fast he is, Silvers places his gun several feet away from himself on
the bar counter, suggesting that even at that distance, he is incredibly
fast. Assessing the impossible, the gunslinger starts his 1-2-3
countdown to draw. Silvers then begins peeling and eating a boiled
egg! de Corsia is incredulous. The ever-calm Silvers' mind game
suggests he has not counted to number three yet. It is classic
Silvers all the way as the fastest tongue in the West. His conniving,
confusing logic melts another challenger, Van Cleef, who becomes
psychologically beaten down into a child, realizing he has a Freudian
complex—his guns simply
represent teddy bears.
The gunslingers cannot have the reputation for shooting the slowest gun in the West, so the mayor hires Silvers as sheriff believing he would never be killed. But the outlaws have had enough of “motor mouth” and hire an even slower on-the-draw coward, Benny, to go up against Silvers. Both end up liking each other—partly out of fear—yet get into an argument about who is more “yellow.” The two cowards are thrust into the street by the townsfolk for a gunfight that would, at the very least, eliminate one of them. Each challenges the other to draw first but each defers. Hilariously, the whole charade extends to nightfall and into the next morning! A final flashback to 1960 has Silvers as a modern police officer—certainly looking like an ancestor of Fletcher Bissell—who is startled by the young boy in the family who points his toy “cowboy gun” at him.
Note: Bud Dashiell and Travis Edmundson, alias "Bud and Travis" only had one hit song, The Ballad of The Alamo (1960) but made several successful albums for Liberty Records between 1958 and 1965.
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