Skragg Review of Waterhole #3

Waterhole #3 (1967)

Pretty entertaining satirical (?) adventure movie

[7/10 · 22 April 2006]

I can't help disagreeing with some of the people who analyze this movie (but not because I don't think there's a place for that). Especially the person who reduces ALL the people who are offended by it to stereotyped feminists and stereotyped "P.C." types (especially since there's hardly any kind of complaint about anything, that actually BEGAN with feminism or "political correctness"). Also, though, I disagree with the people who are sure there were probably NO complaints when the movie came out, because after all, "it was the ' 60s." (Without being sure, I'll bet there were plenty of complaints, even if they were maybe less about feminism, and more about the movie's "morality" in general.) I even disagree somewhat with those who say a movie like this could never be made now (though I think "Joey the Brit" is right in calling it doubtful). I do think (and here I seem to be agreeing with everyone) that if it WERE remade, it would make "Billee" the winner of the gold (which she seems to be in the next-to-last part), which would have two things going against it. First, it would seem self-conscious to almost anyone who knows the original, and second, it would disrupt that whole "anti-hero" idea that fans of the movie like. Having said all that, my way of looking at it is very simple (probably too simple). Instead of thinking of it as (especially) satirical, with an "anti-hero" (which are true, I'm sure), I think of as simply taking the "likeable rogue" idea to great extremes (its "logical extreme" so to speak). After all, in this story, the "hero" locks the sheriff (and not even a CORRUPT sheriff, at least, at that point) in his own jail, and as a further insult to him, ransacks his barn. And as a MUCH further insult to him, has his way with his nubile daughter (all-out rape or not). Leaving her to try her best to get justice for "my rape" (or to get HIM, but in the other sense), with no help from the sheriff himself, or from another lawman, who finds the whole thing unsurprising, and gets back to searching for the gold! Then at the end, when Billee SEEMS like she's about to get the gold (and she's maybe the most obvious choice, as far as "justice" goes), Lewton rides up, and (after enjoying her a second time) rides away with the gold himself. Maybe I'm disproving my own point (at least, about it maybe NOT being anti-feminist) by listing these things, but it's just that I don't entirely think of it as that on the one hand, or terribly "satirical" on the other hand. As opposed to, again, a story with an all-out "rogueish hero."