Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)

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Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)

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Support Your Local Sheriff! is a 1969 American comic western film which parodies the often-filmed scenario of an iconoclastic new arrival who tames a lawless frontier town. Starring James Garner, Joan Hackett, Walter Brennan, and Jack Elam, the film was directed by Burt Kennedy and written by William Bowers.

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Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)

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Plot: The Old West frontier town of Calendar, Colorado springs up almost literally overnight when the rather klutzy and hotheaded Prudy Perkins (Joan Hackett) discovers gold in a grave during a funeral. Her father Olly (Harry Morgan) becomes mayor of the new settlement. He and the other members of the town council bemoan the twin facts that the place has become a drunken round-the-clock free-for-all, and that in order to ship out all the gold they are mining, they must pay a hefty fee to the Danbys, a family of ranchers/bandits who control the only route out of town. Most people are too busy digging to take time out to be sheriff, and those who are willing to put down their shovel quickly die. This all changes with the arrival in town of Jason McCullough (James Garner), a calm and hyper-competent man from "back East" who says he is passing through town on his way to Australia. While in the town saloon, he sees young Joe Danby (Bruce Dern) gun a man down. Needing money after discovering the town's ruinous rate of inflation, McCullough demonstrates his uncanny firearms ability to the mayor and town council, and becomes the new sheriff. He breaks up a street brawl and while at the Perkins house meets Prudy under (for her) mortifying circumstances. McCullough then arrests Joe and tosses him in the town jail, which has everything a sheriff needs - except iron bars for the cell doors and windows. McCullough keeps the none-too-bright Joe imprisoned through the use of a chalk line, some dribbles of red paint, and applied psychology.
In the process of all this, McCullough acquires a semi-willing deputy in the form of the extremely scruffy Jake (Jack Elam), who was previously nothing more than the "town character." The arrest ignites the wrath of the patriarch of the Danby family; while the rest of the town immediately quiets down under McCullough's reign, Pa Danby (Walter Brennan) mounts various efforts to get Joe out of jail. None of them work and he then brings in a string of hired guns, who are equally unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Prudy spars romantically with McCullough, McCullough and Jake go on an unsuccessful search for gold, and, much to Joe's relief, bars are finally installed in the jail. The climax of the film sees Pa Danby summoning scores of his relatives to launch an all-out assault.

–from wikipedia

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Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)

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Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)

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Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)

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Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)

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Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)

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