WATERHOLE #3 (4 outta 5 stars) I've always loved this movie... mostly for the a great song by Roger Miller ("The Code of the West") that plays throughout. James Coburn is a con man and grifter who comes across a map that leads to a fortune in stolen US Army gold. Carroll O'Connor is the crooked sheriff who stays on Coburn's tail. The movie kind of meanders along in a lazy way... with amusing comedy bits and some violent gunplay along the way. As I said, the Roger Miller soundtrack is what really propels this movie along... without it I think the movie would be barely mentionable. The only flaw in this movie... the reason I can't give it 5 stars is for the awful subplot about James Coburn raping the sheriff's daughter and having her fall in love with him for the rest of the movie. I guess a case could be made that the movie is supposed to be "satirizing" the casual treatment of rape by its characters but such "playful" moments as describing rape as "assault with a friendly weapon" seem calculated as laughs AT women rather than AGAINST the menfolk. This probably didn't bother people a bit in 1967 but nowadays... well, you can see why this doesn't play much on TV anymore.
Review of Waterhole #3
