Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Tuesday's Overlooked Movie: Longarm

I'll say right up front that I only saw this movie once, when it first aired on ABC in 1988, and I didn't think it was very good then. But it's interesting that the Longarm Adult Western novels were so successful back then that they prompted the making of a TV movie. If the people who made it had actually taken something from the books other than the name, it might have been successful.

But instead they took a great, well-rounded, interesting character, Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long, and turned him into an utterly bland, generic TV Western lawman played by John Terlesky, who has the thankless task of breathing some life into the character.

However, there's one scene that's stuck with me for nearly 25 years, and it still makes me laugh. It involves a frontier baseball game and a moment of inspired lunacy. If you've never seen this movie, it's doubtful that you ever will, but just in case, I won't go into detail. If you ever run across it, though, watch for that baseball game. (No DVD, no YouTube clip, not even an image from the movie anywhere on-line that I can find. If you didn't see it the first time, like I did, it might as well not even exist.)

5 comments:

Steve M said...

Think it was just shown once over here too (the UK). I watched and remember being disappointed at how much unlike the book character he was and that other regulars weren't in it.

Todd Mason said...

Given it's LONGARM, you know where first thoughts run as to how the ball was batted.

George said...

I never saw the LONGARM movie, but I'll look for it on the Internet.

Cap'n Bob said...

I recall a HAVE GUN,WILL TRAVEL where Paladin was hired to umpire a baseball game in a mining camp. Funny stuff.

Jeremy said...

Does anyone remember what the movie was about? Was it based on any particular Longarm book? This movie is (from what I found on IMDB) also known as "Showdown in Silver City". I wonder if (other than name), it's related to the book, Longarm in Silver City (#40), that came out in '82? Also, the description said something about Longarm taking on "The Outlaw gang that raised him." Did that happen in ANY of the books?! Other than Custis having fought in the war, migrating west, and being a cowpuncher, I never read anything about him riding with any outlaws (which, given Custis's nature, seems extremely unlikely). Also, someone posted the commercial breaks for the movie (when it aired in '88) on Youtube. it shows the opening teaser, and ending movie credits as well. It's posted under "WTVD 11 Raleigh NC 1988 Longarm movie Part 1" and 2.