Jason McCullough (James Garner), a drifter with plans to move to Australia, stops at the fictitious young town of Calendar, Colorado. As a gold rush town, it's very expensive for the time, so he opts for a temp job -- as sheriff. Why, especially in a brawl-happy town where sheriffs have never stuck around long enough to collect pay, thanks to the Danby clan? Well, for all his casual air, he'd hate for Joe Danby (Bruce Dern, the only surviving actor today) to get away with the murder McCullough witnessed. Besides, he has a quick and accurate draw, which he's kept under wraps to avoid the wrong kind of attention until now.
That summary doesn't sound very comedic, so I think I'll add a few details. The town councilmen (Harry Morgan, Henry Jones, William Bouchey, and Walter Burke) waffle on whether they even want genuine law enforcement; half the time, they're on the verge of metaphorically shooting themselves in the foot. The jail has everything but bars for the cell door and window, so McCullough has to improvise. He projects so much confidence that crooks tend to do as he says and then feel stupid about it. He takes a ridiculously short time to completely change the mind of lowlife Jake (Jack Elam) on whether to be his deputy. Even McCullough can be remarkably fickle when the going gets tough.
And then there's the mayor's daughter, Prudy (Joan Hackett), who's filthy rich and often just plain filthy, what with her tendency to get caught up in the roughness. She seems cursed to have McCullough repeatedly meet her under unflattering circumstances, yet they don't ruin his opinion of her. They disagree on who had eyes for the other first, among other petty issues. Don't believe the Netflix jacket: She's an action hero, not a damsel in distress.
Further research tells me that SYLS parodies quite a few particular westerns. I recognized at least one, but I hadn't picked up on Walter Brennan mirroring his role in My Darling Clementine as a criminal patriarch overseeing greater fools. Perhaps I'd have gotten more out of this if I had watched a lot of old westerns recently.
As it is, I'm a bit disappointed. Sure, I chuckled a little when characters got as incredulous as I'd be, but there isn't much intellect, creativity, or unpredictability involved. Nor is the humor as spicy as the year would suggest. About the only gags that couldn't have been done under the Hays Code involved references to the suspiciously named Madam Orr's House. (The film was released with a G rating; it'd be PG today.) It's not half as off-the-wall as Blazing Saddles or even Cat Ballou.
You would need to be more old-fashioned than me before I considered recommending SYLS to you. The best I can say is that it's a light way to pass 92 minutes, and it probably won't annoy you. And the preview is all I care to see of its spiritual successor, Support Your Local Gunfighter, which apparently couldn't work up the enthusiasm for another exclamation point.
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