Support Your Local Sheriff! is a 1969 American Western comedy directed by Burt Kennedy and written and produced by William Bowers. James Garner stars as Jason McCullough, a wandering gunslinger who arrives in the rapidly growing Colorado mining town of Calendar and takes the job of sheriff primarily because it pays well. Joan Hackett plays Prudy Perkins, daughter of Mayor Olly Perkins, played by Harry Morgan, while Walter Brennan is Pa Danby, the patriarch of the notoriously troublesome Danby family.
Jack Elam plays Jake, a local eccentric who becomes Jason’s unlikely assistant, and the supporting cast includes Bruce Dern as Joe Danby, Henry Jones as Henry Jackson, Gene Evans as Tom Danby, Willis Bouchey as Thomas Devery, Kathleen Freeman as Mrs. Danvers, and Dick Peabody as Luke Danby. The film runs approximately 92 minutes, was photographed in Technicolor, and was released by United Artists on March 26, 1969.
The story begins when Prudy discovers gold in a grave, setting off a small gold rush and transforming Calendar almost overnight. Prospectors, gamblers, criminals, and fortune seekers pour into the town, while the discovery also creates a major problem: Calendar has virtually no effective law enforcement. Jason McCullough arrives looking for work and initially has little interest in becoming a hero.
He accepts the sheriff’s job largely because of the salary, making it clear that he intends to leave if the position becomes too dangerous. His attitude is deliberately different from the traditional Western hero who accepts the badge out of duty or a desire to bring justice to the frontier. Jason soon discovers that the Danbys are the town’s biggest problem. Pa Danby and his sons have intimidated Calendar for years, and Joe Danby in particular is accustomed to getting his way through violence.
Jason’s response is not to outgun everyone in town but to use intelligence, bluffing, psychological manipulation, and an almost comically casual attitude toward danger. One of the movie’s central jokes is that Jason often appears to be completely unconcerned while everyone else is terrified. He is an extremely capable gunfighter, but he generally prefers to avoid unnecessary shooting. His partnership with Jake, who is fascinated by the new sheriff’s confidence, adds another layer of comic unpredictability.
Cast
- Garner, James (April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) – Jason McCullough, the wandering gunslinger who accepts the sheriff’s job in Calendar mainly for the money, then uses his intelligence and gunfighting ability to deal with the Danby family – previous movies and TV roles included Maverick, The Children’s Hour, The Great Escape, The Americanization of Emily, Grand Prix, and The Thrill of It All, as well as Maverick and The New Loretta Young Show.
- Hackett, Joan (March 1, 1934 – October 8, 1983) – Prudy Perkins, Mayor Olly Perkins’s spirited daughter, who discovers the gold that triggers Calendar’s boom and becomes romantically involved with Jason – previous movies and TV roles included The Group, Will Penny, The Twilight Zone, The Fugitive, The Defenders, and The Last of Sheila.
- Brennan, Walter (July 25, 1894 – September 21, 1974) – Pa Danby, the elderly but powerful patriarch of the Danby clan, whose family has dominated and terrorized Calendar – previous movies and TV roles included The Westerner, My Darling Clementine, Red River, Rio Bravo, To Have and Have Not, The Pride of the Yankees, and the television series The Real McCoys.
- Morgan, Harry (April 10, 1915 – December 7, 2011) – Olly Perkins, Calendar’s excitable mayor and Prudy’s father, who desperately needs Jason to restore order to the town – previous movies and TV roles included The Ox-Bow Incident, High Noon, Inherit the Wind, The Glenn Miller Story, The Big Clock, Dragnet, December Bride, and Pete and Gladys.
- Elam, Jack (November 13, 1920 – October 20, 2003) – Jake, the eccentric stable worker whom Jason appoints as his deputy and who becomes his enthusiastic, unconventional partner in dealing with the Danbys – previous movies and TV roles included Rawhide, High Noon, Vera Cruz, The Comancheros, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, and Maverick.
- Jones, Henry (August 1, 1912 – May 17, 1999) – Henry Jackson, the nervous and easily intimidated town official whose attempts to maintain order are complicated by Calendar’s lawlessness – previous movies and TV roles included The Bad Seed, 3:10 to Yuma, Vertigo, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, The Man with the Golden Arm, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Guns of Will Sonnett, and The Twilight Zone.
- Dern, Bruce (June 4, 1936 – ) – Joe Danby, Pa Danby’s particularly dangerous and not especially bright son, who becomes Jason’s principal adversary among the Danbys – previous movies and TV roles included Marnie, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, The Wild Angels, The Trip, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, and appearances on Route 66, The Virginian, and The Big Valley.
- Bouchey, Willis (May 24, 1907 – September 27, 1977) – Thomas Devery, one of Calendar’s local civic figures who is caught up in the town’s struggle to establish law and order – previous movies and TV roles included Pickup on South Street, The Naked City, The War of the Worlds, Strategic Air Command, The Searchers, and television appearances on Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun – Will Travel, and The Adventures of Superman.
- Freeman, Kathleen (February 17, 1919 – August 23, 2001) – Mrs. Danvers, a Calendar resident whose comic presence adds to the town’s collection of eccentric citizens – previous movies and TV roles included Singin’ in the Rain, The Fly, The Disorderly Orderly, The Nutty Professor, The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Hogan’s Heroes.
- Burke, Walter (August 25, 1908 – August 4, 1984) – Fred Johnson, a minor but recognizable Calendar character involved in the town’s daily activities – previous movies and TV roles included All the King’s Men, The Naked City, Jack the Giant Killer, The Buccaneer, The Wild Wild West, The Twilight Zone, One Step Beyond, and Have Gun – Will Travel.
- Johnson, Chubby (August 13, 1903 – October 31, 1974) – Brady, one of the colorful residents of Calendar who helps populate the comic frontier community – previous movies and TV roles included The Far Country, The Gunfighter, The Spoilers, The Last Wagon, The Tall Man, Maverick, Gunsmoke, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, and Have Gun – Will Travel.
- Evans, Gene (July 11, 1922 – April 1, 1998) – Tom Danby, one of Pa Danby’s sons and a member of the family threatening Calendar’s peace – previous movies and TV roles included The Steel Helmet, Fixed Bayonets!, Ace in the Hole, Operation Petticoat, The Giant Behemoth, The War Wagon, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and the television series My Friend Flicka.
- Peabody, Dick (April 6, 1925 – December 27, 1999) – Luke Danby, another of Pa Danby’s sons and one of the members of the Danby clan confronting Jason – previous movies and TV roles included Combat!, in which he played Pfc. Littlejohn, along with appearances in The Good Guys and the Bad Guys, The Rat Patrol, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Virginian, and other Western and military television programs.
- Haynes, Dick (January 9, 1911 – November 25, 1980) – Bartender, a small but identifiable role as the bartender serving the colorful residents and visitors of Calendar – previous movies and TV roles included The Phantom Planet, The Untouchables, A Time to Sing, The Andy Griffith Show, The Rounders, and The High Chaparral. The film credits identify Haynes specifically as the bartender.
The film deliberately turns familiar Western conventions upside down. Jason is not the grim, morally tormented lawman who rides into town determined to clean things up. He is practical, sarcastic, lazy-looking, and motivated initially by money. The movie repeatedly sets up situations that appear to demand a conventional Western shootout and then resolves them through Jason’s cleverness. This approach allows Garner to use the relaxed, understated comic persona that had become one of his greatest strengths. His performance is particularly
effective because Jason rarely seems to be trying to be funny; the humor comes from the contrast between his calm reactions and the increasingly absurd situations surrounding him. Joan Hackett’s Prudy is also important to the movie’s comic structure. Rather than functioning merely as the sheriff’s romantic interest, she is resourceful and perfectly capable of defending herself. Her relationship with Jason develops gradually amid the chaos in Calendar.
Harry Morgan provides another source of humor as Mayor Olly Perkins, whose attempts to maintain civic order are continually complicated by the Danbys and the town’s sudden population explosion. Walter Brennan, meanwhile, makes Pa Danby an exaggerated version of the traditional Western patriarch, while Jack Elam turns Jake into one of the movie’s most memorable comic figures. The screenplay was written by William Bowers, who had originally hoped to direct the picture himself.
According to the American Film Institute, Bowers brought an unfinished version of the script to James Garner, who liked it and became involved in getting the project made. Garner was working with United Artists and ultimately had his Cherokee Productions company make the picture. Bowers became the producer as well as the screenwriter, making the film his only feature-film producing credit. James Garner received an executive-producer credit, while William R. Finnegan was associate producer.
Burt Kennedy was hired to direct rather than Bowers. Kennedy was particularly well suited to the project because of his extensive experience with Westerns and his understanding of how to play the genre’s conventions for comedy. Production took place in California rather than Colorado. Principal photography began in March 1968 and continued through April 30. The production was based at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio lot in Culver City, and location filming included the Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth, Los Angeles.
Iverson Ranch was one of Hollywood’s most frequently used Western locations, and its distinctive rock formations and rugged terrain had appeared in countless films and television programs. The AFI identifies Culver City as the principal geographic production location, while IMDb specifically identifies Iverson Ranch as a filming location. The picture was made for a relatively modest estimated
budget of about $750,000. Its production was described as the first fully independent venture by James Garner’s Cherokee Productions. The finished film became an important example of how a relatively inexpensive Western could be built around a major star while relying on character comedy, familiar genre situations, and a strong supporting cast rather than elaborate spectacle. The movie’s success also demonstrated that Western audiences could enjoy a deliberately comic treatment of the genre at a time when Hollywood Westerns were becoming increasingly varied in tone. One of the more unusual production stories involved the opening sequence. Paramount Pictures objected that the discovery of gold in an open grave closely resembled material in Paint Your Wagon, another 1969 Western.
Paramount sent a warning to United Artists, but Bowers’s representatives argued that the material was derived from the earlier printed work Recollections of the California Mines. The dispute did not develop into a court case, and production proceeded. The coincidence was especially interesting because Paint Your Wagon and Support Your Local Sheriff! were both released in 1969 and both used the discovery of gold as a major story element.
The movie contains numerous small jokes and Western in-jokes. A wanted poster for Ben Silas seen in the jail was also used repeatedly on the television series Gunsmoke. Joan Hackett hums “Rock of Ages” during the opening funeral sequence, while the hymn is also heard on an accordion. The film’s humor frequently depends on such small details rather than on elaborate visual gags.
There are also continuity oddities, including the number of Danby family members during the climactic confrontation, when the apparent number of surviving family members does not always match what has happened onscreen. Support Your Local Sheriff! became particularly well remembered because it treated the Western
genre with affection while simultaneously poking fun at its most familiar conventions. Garner’s Jason McCullough is the key to the movie: he is a competent frontier hero without behaving like one, and his refusal to take the usual Western poses gives the film much of its personality. The picture was followed two years later by Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971), also directed by Burt Kennedy and starring Garner, although that movie features a different character and story. Several members of the cast and production team returned for the sequel. A proposed third film, Support Your Local Coward, was discussed and even had a first-draft script, but it was never produced. Today, Support Your Local Sheriff! is remembered as one of the distinctive comedy Westerns of the late 1960s and as an especially good showcase for James Garner’s effortless comic timing.
Its combination of a traditional frontier setting, an intentionally unconventional hero, sharp one-liners, eccentric supporting characters, and an affectionate parody of Western formulas gives it a tone that is considerably lighter than many of the period’s more serious Westerns. The film’s modest production circumstances actually work in its favor: rather than depending on spectacle, it concentrates on Garner, Hackett, Brennan, Morgan, Elam, Dern, and the rest of the ensemble, allowing the characters and dialogue to drive the comedy.
Further Reading
Sources
- Wikipedia “Support Your Local Sheriff!” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_Your_Local_Sheriff!
- IMDB “Support Your Local Sheriff! 1969 G 1h 32m” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065051/
- Rotten Tomatoes “Support Your Local Sheriff! G, 1969, 1h 33m, Western/Comedy” https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/support_your_local_sheriff
