The Bushwhackers

The nature of democracy is that it opposes tyrants and decides its own fate. There you have the rare note in this perfect Western co-written by Tom Gries and the director.

The railroad’s coming through, nesters don’t know this, old man Taylor (Lon Chaney, Jr.) is burning them out for the land to sell. A Reb soldier after the war, disenchanted with violence, passes through Independence and gets a job on the paper.

Ford makes hay of the editor’s murder in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which is a summation of the theme.

John Ireland and Dorothy Malone, even before The Fast and the Furious.

Come Honk Your Horn
My Mother the Car

In which the delightful premise is given of reincarnation as a 1928 Porter lovingly polished and repaired that excites the malicious envy of a collector.

The De-Fenders
My Mother the Car

A long sequence of gags brings all the Crabtree family to the garage, where they spend the night guarding against carstrippers. In the morning their house has been picked clean by burglars, and neighbor Phil Durkin (Bill Daily) crows that he spent the night comfortably in his, but his car is stripped down to the chassis and motor.

Where Does It Hurt?

The high cost of hospitalization. Insurance coverage. Medical practice and malpractice.

Gouge and placate, the standard operating procedure.

“If you went legitimate, you could be President.”

“I never work on a straight salary, they’d have to give me five percent of the country, that’s two-and-a-half States, they’d never go for that.”

A.H. Weiler of the New York Times, “on the theory that speed, gags, explicit cracks and sex were sufficient to make life at ‘Vista Vue Hospital’ hilarious.” TV Guide, “if you hate doctors... and humanity, you'll love this movie.” Clarke Fountain (All Movie Guide), “in the broadest of broad comic manners.” Halliwell’s Film Guide, “dislikeable, plodding smut”.