Sam Whiskey

Sam Whiskey (Burt Reynolds , one of his first ever main cast ) is an rogue adventurer , then he's hired by a gorgeous widow (Angie Dickinson ). He must retrieve a treasure recently stolen by her deceased husband from a sunken ship . Sam teams up an African-American blacksmith (Ossie Davis) and a tall inventor (Clint Walker) who designs a diving helmet . But they are followed by a fat man and hoodlums (Anthony James) . Later on , they manage to get hundred pounds of gold bars and put it into a mint house ruled by a stiff-upper-lip superintendent (William Schallert) with anyone aware .

This entertaining movie displays western action , fist-play , bemusing caper , shootouts and lively humor . Friendly performance by Burt Reynolds at his first serious attempt to be fun and enticing Angie Dickinson who does a brief nudist exhibition and heavily cut by censorship . This film is one of a number of screen westerns that Burt Reynolds played during the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s . These movie westerns include Fade-in (1965) by Jud Taylor ; Navajo Joe (1966) by Sergio Corbucci ; 100 rifles (1969) by Tom Gries ; The man who loved Cat Dancing (1973) by Richard T Heffron and the overlong TV series Gunsmoke . Good secondary cast , as the veteran William Schallert as mint superintendent , Ossie Davis , Clint Walker and last film of Chubby Johnson , habitual support cast in numerous Westerns ; furthermore , Anthony James , usual baddie of the 70s . Atmospheric musical score and colorful cinematography ; however , the film is made in television style . Director Arnold Laven created his proper production company along with Arthur Gardner and Jules V. Levy in the 50s , at the decade since , they had produced dozens of additional TV Western including ¨Rifleman¨ , ¨Big Valley¨ , ¨Law of the Plainsmen¨ , ¨Zane Grey theater¨ , ¨Gunsmoke¨ and Laven directed several Western movies such as ¨Geronimo¨ , ¨Rought night in Jericho¨ , ¨The glory guys¨ and ¨Sam Whiskey¨ , among others. Rating : Average but amusing.

Playing the title role Burt Reynolds settles into the cynical good old boy character he would really shine in for the 70s and 80s in Sam Whiskey. Burt's playing a man no better than he should be who often goes back and forth on both sides of the law who gets an interesting proposition from widow Angie Dickinson.

It seems during the late war between the safe her late husband robbed the Denver Mint of a lot of its bullion. She wants to give it back, but not so anyone would know it was ever stolen because some fake bullion was left in its place and about to be discovered as the U.S. government is about to withdraw Greenbacks and resume specie type money. He gets $20,000.00 from Dickinson for he and his associates Ossie Davis and Clint Walker.

They to devise quite the caper and that I won't go into. Reynolds took a lot of his style and persona from James Garner and his Sam Whiskey could have been Jim Rockford in the old west. Dickinson's the kind of woman you don't turn down, she knows how to keep a man's interest.

Special mention goes to Woodrow Parfrey as the inspecting Treasury man from the east. Without knowing it Parfrey and his hapless checker playing self become an integral part of the caper.

A caper western in the tradition of The War Wagon and a good one.

Reynolds' undeniable charm and appeal are stretched to their limit in this simple, eternally average western yarn. He plays the title character, a drifter who is talked into a nearly impossible heist job by the sexually persuasive Dickinson. The film opens with an enjoyable confrontation between Reynolds and Davis (who would later work together on "Evening Shade".) The pair later hooks up with gorgeous lunkhead inventor Walker and attempts the job at hand...putting $125,000 worth of gold BACK INTO the Denver mint. They are pursued by a mysterious man, with the thickest eyeglasses on the planet, who wants the gold for himself. The film has a light tone and has the elements to be amusing and entertaining, but somehow misses the mark. For one thing, if one removed the scenes of the covered wagon travelling cross country, the film would probably run about 40 minutes! Also, the plot, as written, is just a little thin to sustain a feature film. Reynolds is near the peak of his attractiveness and shows off his chest in a bathtime scene. Unfortunately, Walker (who possessed the chest to end them all!) is denied that chance. The closest he gets is a bondage scene in which his shirt is cut open slightly. (Was Reynolds afraid of a little beefcake competition?) Davis does well in his role and Walker has a few nice bits as well. The whole thing just has a sheen of mediocrity over it. Dickinson is her usual stiff, breathy-voiced self, but is attractive and manages to supply a touch of amusement. Oft-used character actor Schallert is given a nice role. One mystery that even J.B. Fletcher couldn't solve: How could anyone, after hearing Reynolds sing in this film, hire him for "At Long last Love"?? Fans of Reynolds and of quirky westerns should enjoy it more than others.

After being enlisted by a hot widow (Angie Dickinson), a former war spy (Burt Reynolds), a blacksmith (Ossie Davis) and an inventor (Clint Walker) team-up to salvage a treasure in gold bars from a sunken ship in the Platte River, a treasure the woman's husband stole. They then have to return the gold bars to the Denver Mint before the phony bars are discovered and the woman's family name is tarnished. But how will they get all those gold bars into the Mint without anyone noticing?

People tend to dub this a Western Comedy, but it's not in the silly sense of "Blazing Saddles" (1974) "Texas Across the River" (1966) or "The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox" (1976). It's more of a Western Caper with amusing flashes, mainly due to Reynold's fun-loving title character.

The same plot was later used in John Wayne's "The Train Robbers" (1973) with Ann-Margret in the Angie Dickinson role, minus the caper in the third act. They're both worth checking out, but I favor "The Train Robbers" because, to me, the caper in the last act gets kind of tedious, not to mention unbelievable. Nevertheless, "Sam Whiskey" features a great cast with fun-lovin' chemistry and quality Western locations.

It is presumed that the story takes place circa 1870-75 since it is detailed that Sam was a spy during the Civil War and he appears to be around 30-35 tops. Actually, the earliest the story COULD have taken place would be 1906, which is when the Denver Mint began minting coins, but this would make Whiskey about 65 years old, which he obviously isn't. Adding to the problem, the Carson City Mint shut down in 1893. So the timeline is all fudged up.

The movie runs 1 hour, 36 minutes and was shot at Universal City, Burbank and Lake Camanche, Ione, California (with underwater scenes done in Silver Springs, Florida).

GRADE: B/B- (6.5/10)

This is a forgotten Burt Reynolds film, that is not really that bad. This is some humor in Burt's character, and Ossie Davis, The two were paired again years later in evening shade. maybe united artists will put this on dvd, or at least tape.