Film Year: 1948
Genre: Western
Director: Robert L. Lippert
Starring: James Ellison, Mary Beth Hughes, Jane Frazee, Douglass Dumbrille
MST Season: 6
The Movie
The sole directing credit of cheapie film producer and MST legend Robert Lippert, word says Lippert "fired" himself for failing at his own schedule. The film was reportedly finished on schedule by Paul Landres and Lippert never tried to direct again.
And that is probably the most interesting thing I could say about Last of the Wild Horses, as trite and unremarkable a western as has ever been made. The story involves an outlaw turned rancher named Duke (insert obligatory "Not John Wayne" joke here) who gets caught up in a property war of horses. When other ranchers are killed over this, Duke is framed for their murder.
According to the opening credits this movie was originally released in a sepia tone color, which is a brownish tint that you'd see in a lot of old photographs. The print in this episode is plain black and white. I find this unfortunate, because at least a sepia tone would have given the film some sort of flavor, and now it's drained of what little personality it might have offered. What's left is pretty much a western for the sake of a western, full of actors talking in drawl and playing cowboy. There is nothing interesting here. It meanders and despite this we never feel any sort of knowledge of the characters, who just feel like they're meandering as well instead of, you know, developing or something. As a result it's hard for me to root for the good guys or give two shits about the bad guys maybe winning.
It's a film made for the crowd that would buy a western no matter what it might be, and to those who do so I can safely say Last of the Wild Horses isn't the worst thing I've ever seen. It's just not interesting. It's the base definition of a motion picture in that it's just a picture in motion that you can watch. If that's enough then by all means, put on your cowboy hat and grab your toy gun and enjoy.
The Episode
Forgiving the fact that the movie is fairly unremarkable this week, this episode of Mystery Science Theater makes up with their own personality by turning to Star Trek for inspiration on its host segments, specifically the original series episode Mirror, Mirror, which saw the introduction of the Mirror Universe alternate dimension where all our beloved characters were evil...EEEEEEEEEVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIL! Incidentally this episode was produced the same year that the Mirror Universe was reintroduced into Trek lore via Deep Space Nine. Whether that DS9 storyline had any influence on this episode is unknown to me, but it's a fun little asterisk to this episode.
This episode sees the Mads sending a Matter Transference Device up to the Satellite of Love during an ion storm, and the resulting malfunction sends Servo and Gypsy into an alternate dimension where their counterparts, as well as Mike and Crow, are the mad scientists and Dr. Forrester and Frank are the test subjects. The fun little aside here is that Dr. F and Frank sit in the theater for the first theater segment and give us a glimpse of the riffing chemistry they'd be known for in their later years during Cinematic Titanic and The Mads Are Back. Trace and Frank are pretty fun here, though if I were to put a damper on this I'd say they never build up any riff momentum, which may be the result of them only riffing a tiny fraction of the film. The rest takes place in our universe and the riffing is done by Mike and Crow, with Mirror Tom Servo at their side for the mid segments and normal Servo for the finale. There is not much of a difference between the riffing styles of Mirror Servo and normal Servo, so this change of pace isn't really a change at all. In fact Mirror Servo seems very accepting of being in the theater, surprisingly.
Talking more about the riffing, the great thing about this movie is that it has no genuine attributes of any kind. Except for cowboy hats. The beauty of riffing Last of the Wild Horses is that you can inflict your own brand of comedy upon it and it will most likely stick, because it's desperate for something distinguishable about it. The riffs keep things playful and silly, which proves to be a great counterweight for the unremarkable. While I always struggle to remember the film itself, I always remember laughing quite a bit at it.
As a result most tend to remember this episode squarely for the host segments and the fact that Frank riffs with Dr. Forrester for about fifteen minutes. I'd say that might be a tad bit of a disservice to this fine episode. Sure, there's a certain forgettable nature to the movie featured, but the laughter is quite strong with this one. And if you struggle to remember it, the laughs just might always feel fresh the next time you watch it as well. I find myself loving this episode every time I watch it.
Classic
The DVD
Shout Factory released the Wild Horses on their Volume XXIII set. The video is flawed, especially during the third theater segment, though I didn't find it too bothersome since for a while I was under the impression that it might have been the master for the film itself. Audio is stable though. The only special features are promos Best Brains created for the series, all of which look as if they were filmed during production of the episodes themselves. The promos range from season three to five and are mostly pretty funny.
No comments:
Post a Comment