The Meanest Men In The West may “star” Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin and Sam Fuller may be credited as being one of the film’s two directors but don’t make the same mistake that I made. Don’t get too excited.
There was once a TV western called The Virginian. Starring James Drury as a ranch foreman, The Virginian ran for nine seasons on NBC. A 1962 episode, which was written and directed by Sam Fuller, featured Lee Marvin as a sadistic outlaw who kidnapped The Virginian’s employer, a judge played by Lee J. Cobb. Five years later, another episode features Charles Bronson as a less sadistic outlaw who kidnapped the Judge’s daughter.
The Meanest Men In The West mixes scenes from those two episode with western stock footage, a bank robbery that originally appeared in The Return of Frank James, an intrusive voice-over, and an almost incoherent prologue, all in order to tell an entirely new story. Now, Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin are brothers and rivals. After Marvin snitches on Bronson’s plan to rob a bank, Bronson blames his former friend, The Virginian. In order to get the Virginian to come to his hideout, Bronson kidnaps Cobb’s daughter. The Virginian manages to convince Bronson that he didn’t betray him, just to arrive back at the ranch and discover that Cobb has been kidnapped. Meanwhile, Bronson and his gang set off after Marvin and his gang. It ends with Charles Bronson, in 1967, shooting at Lee Marvin, who is still in 1962.
The Meanest Men In The West is so clumsily edited that the same shot of Charles Bronson holding a gun is spliced into a dozen different scenes. Filmed on different film stocks, the Bronson scenes and the Marvin scenes look nothing alike and, since the two episodes were filmed five years apart, James Drury literally ages backwards over the course of the film.
The Meanest Men In The West is for Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin completists only. I think Bronson and Marvin are two of the coolest individuals who ever existed and even I had a hard time making it through this one. If you do watch it, keep an eye out for a young Charles Grodin, thoroughly miscast as a tough outlaw.
California. The 1870s. Sheriff Pearce (Ben Johnson) boards a train with his prisoner, an alleged outlaw named John Deakin (Charles Bronson). The train is mostly full of soldiers, under the command of Major Claremont (Ed Lauter), who are on their way to Fort Humboldt. The fort has suffered a diphtheria epidemic and the soldiers are supposedly transporting medical supplies.
A group of Navy SEALs enter North Korea on a mission to destroy a submarine that has fallen into Kim Il-sung’s hands. They destroy the submarine but are captured before they can safely cross the border back into South Korea. With the SEALs facing a show trial and probable public execution, Admiral Rothman (James Cromwell) draws up a plan to rescure them. The U.S. government, not wanting to escalate the situation, shoots down the plan. (Americans giving up? Is Carter still president?) However, Rothman’s nerdy son, Max (Marc Price), gets a hold of the plan. Before you can say “Why didn’t anyone else think of this?”, he and the children of the SEALs are sneaking into North Korea and rescuing their fathers!
Saigon, South Vietnam. A CIA agent stands on a street corner when a young man parks his scooter in front of him. The young man runs away and the scooter explodes, killing the agent. Another agent, Mark Andrews (Burt Reynolds), is sent to Saigon to find out why the first agent was killed. From the minute he arrives, Mark finds himself in the middle of a web of betrayal, intrigue, double agents, and a communist plot to assassinate the American ambassador. Only Mark can prevent the assassination but first, he is going to have to survive a series of death traps. He will also have to wrestle a boa constrictor. If you have ever wanted to see Burt Reynolds wrestle a boa constrictor, this is the movie for you.
