Support Your Local Sheriff!

In the mid to late ’60s, actor James Garner was riding high with a packed schedule. He had recently appeared in Duel at Diablo with Sidney Poitier, played a Formula One driver in John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix, played Wyatt Earp in John Sturges’ Hour of the Gun and tackled a comedy, How Sweet It Is, with Debbie Reynolds and Paul Lynde. It was only natural for Garner to try a western comedy film, after his comedic turn as Bret Maverick on ’50s TV.

Support Your Local Sheriff! makes full use of Garner’s easy charm as a wanderer, Jason McCullough, “on his way to Australia” who stops in the town of Calendar, Colorado to make some easy gold-digging money (gold was discovered in the grave of the last sheriff the town hired – he’d lasted several days before being shot). The general lawlessness of the town is exasperated by the evil Danbys, a family of ranchers led by Pa Danby (a gruff Walter Brennan).

When fast shooter Jason confronts one of Pa’s sons, Joe (Bruce Dern), he’s offered the job of town sheriff by Mayor Olly Perkins (Harry Morgan). Jason also eventually meets the eccentric Prudy Perkins (Joan Hackett) and Jake (Jack Elam), who becomes his right-hand man. Joan Hackett is largely unknown now, but was an exceptional talent, only taking roles she found interesting. Jack Elam was, of course, a mainstay of westerns, appearing in dozens of them.

Support Your Local Sheriff!, playing off some of the counter-cultural ideas in the air, is a very funny film, one that proves it’s possible to make audiences laugh at a western genre film without bartering in crudities (see Blazing Saddles). It makes absurdities believable, like Jason keeping Joe in an open, unfinished prison cell, with some red paint splattered on the floor to represent the blood of the last prisoner who attempted to leave. Garner’s droll, bemused personality sells the whole, breezy, short picture.

Support Your Local Sheriff! was produced by Cherokee Productions, a company which James Garner founded in 1965 (Garner was 3/4 Cherokee) and which produced or co-produced Grand Prix, The Rockford Files and a wealth of other feature films, documentaries, TV shows and movies for many decades (the company is still running).

The film bombed at the box office during its first week and was almost pulled from theaters by United Artists. Garner put up his own money to keep the release afloat and the gamble paid off; it was one of the biggest money makers of the year.

Support‘s director, Burt Kennedy, a longtime writer and director of westerns, also directed 1971’s Yojimbo parody Support Your Local Gunfighter, also starring Garner (it’s not a sequel). Both Support Your Local Sheriff! and Support Your Local Gunfighter have been recently released on one disc on Twilight Time Blu Ray.

—Michael R. Neno, 2018 Dec 17