LouHomey
From my favorite movies..
Nessieldwi
Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.
Juana
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
Robert J. Maxwell
A made-for-TV cowboy movie with no bankable stars -- pretty ominous. Yet it's better than that.It's the 1920s in Oklahoma and the oil boom is in full bloom. As Bill Tilghman, a famous elderly retired lawman of the old West, Sam Elliot is living a peaceful life on his ranch not far from a boom town called Cromwell. He's engaged in trying to make movies that show the old West as it really was at a time when Tom Mix ("too purty") is the glamorous hero of silent movies.But Cromwell is having a hell of a bad time. This is prohibition, after all, and, what with Oklahoma being what it is, you have prohibition piled upon prohibition. Yet none of that stops the booze that flows like the Mississippi River through good old Cromwell. More than that, a mixture of cocaine and heroin is on its way from the gangsters in Kansas City. Worst of all, they insist on wearing white after Labor Day.The local sheriff wises up to this and reports it to the man from the Federal Bureau of Prohibition or whatever it is. He's played as a real skank by Arliss Howard, who has an innocent face and the moral character of a flesh-eating bacterium. When they get in his way he casually shoots the sheriff and the local informer and dumps their bodies into an oil tank.The good folk of Cromwell appeal to former lawman Elliot to come and introduce family values into their community. Elliot's wife, Carolyn McCormick -- I almost wrote Dr. Elizabeth Olivet -- is supportive but doesn't want her husband putting his life on the line. They have two lovely kids. McCormick, by the way, is pretty foxy and delivers a more animated and nuanced performance than she ever did on the small screen.So Elliot proceeds to clean up the unrestrained violence and vulgarity of Cromwell and the townsfolk are shocked. Most are supportive but some have grown kinda fond of the booze and the whorehouses and the guns. Especially antagonistic is Arliss Howard, the federal man who gets a big cut of the illegal shenanigans, and his companion in crime, whose name I can't figure out but who resembles Pizza The Hut. It doesn't play out well for Sam Elliot or his family. That much is historical fact.I don't want to bother researching the history of the real Bill Tilghman but there are some scenes that are so thoroughly Hollywoodized that they lose all credibility. I truly doubt that Tilghman, with two bullets in him, survived just long enough to whisper a few last words to his wife -- "Honey...Take care...Take care of the children. I'm on my way to the big roundup in the sky." And I strongly doubt that, on the death of Tilghman, the good folks of the town finally rallied and burned down all the gambling halls, whorehouses, bars, and stills.That's probably the weakest part of the film, the writing. There are times when it's not clear who Elliot is arresting or why, or what happens to them. It seems poorly edited. How did Elliot know that bodies were being dumped into the oil storage tank? And casting gets a bonus point for giving the role of the corrupt federal man to Arliss Howard, whose character name is "Wiley." I don't know whether that was intentional or not but it's a palpable touch. The script, however, has made him not just a bad guy but almost the personification of evil -- he throws his girl friend to the floor, he snorts dope, he's always waving around an automatic pistol. A demerit too for casting as the corrupt sheriff a poor actor who could never play anything but an evil part -- the subtlety of a sledge hammer.But extra points for production design, location shooting, and photography. A lot of attention has been paid to period detail and it pays off.
Woodyanders
Proud and rugged cowboy law enforcer Bill Tilghman (a spot-on terrific performance by the always dependable Sam Elliott) lives off his past triumphs by making authentic Western movies in the early 20th century. Tilghman gets hired to clean up a scrappy small town that's rife with crime and vice. He faces opposition from manic coke-snorting Federal agent Wiley (a lively and deliciously slimy portrayal by Arliss Howard). Writer/director John Kent Harrison relates the enjoyable and engrossing story at a brisk pace, offers a flavorsome evocation of the Roaring Twenties period setting, and astutely explores the radical discrepancy between the blunt and honest Old West way of doing things and the more shady and decadent attitude of the 1920's. Naturally, it's a real treat to see Elliott expertly play a colorful large-than-life living legend figure who counts as a true hero because of how he inspires others to rise to the occasion with his firm disposition and strongly felt beliefs. Moreover, there are sound contributions from Carolyn McCormick as Tighlman's feisty wife Zoe, James Gammon as the amiable Arkansas Tom, R. Lee Ermey as the loyal Marshal Nix, and James Parks as wormy stoolie Alibi Joe. Both Lees Van Oostrum's sharp cinematography and Lawrence Shragge's twangy harmonic score are up to par. Worthwhile viewing for Sam Elliott fans.
bkoganbing
It's too bad that Sam Elliott didn't come along 20 or 30 years earlier to films. If he had he would never lack for work as a cowboy hero. He's not done too bad in the present day in any event. In You Know My Name he plays one of the west's last genuine heroes from the old days in a new era with little regard for law enforcement which proves to be his undoing.Bill Tilghman, one of the great frontier marshals of the old west took his last job in law enforcement in Cromwell, Oklahoma in 1924. It was an oil boom town, a wide open town with roughneck money fueling the economy the way the trail hands did back in Tilghman's prime. Now however big city gangsters and their hirelings are running things and even though Prohibition is in the Constitution, that doesn't seem to matter to a thirsty public. It's a world of rumbleseats in flivvers, tommy guns, and bobbed hair on women, Tilghman is out of his time.He's also got a jurisdictional dispute with Prohibition Federal agent Arliss Howard playing the corrupt T-Man, Wiley Lynn. For all the agents like Eliot Ness, there were more like Wiley Lynn, getting rich on bribes enabling people to flout an unpopular law.Elliott gives one of his best performances as Bill Tilghman. A weary man who could sit back on his laurels and they were considerable, at the age of 70, yes 70, he goes back to doing the work of a younger man because the younger man are corrupt in a corrupt age. This part was one where Sam Elliott's premature gray hair stood him in good stead.What you see in You Know My Name is the truth, exactly what happened to Tilghman. I would commend people to read up on Tilghman and find out that this last of the frontier marshals had one glorious career that came to a sad end. This is a wonderful film about a western hero who literally did die with his boots on.
ccthemovieman-1
Any western that stars Sam Elliott is usually a good one. Few people have ever looked and sounded more like a cowboy than Sam. Also, most westerns feature beautiful landscapes and overall photography, and this film is no exception. Being made-for-TV, it could have been made on-the-cheap but it wasn't. I am not a fan of Ted Turner but his TNT westerns look beautiful, all of them.Elliott plays a lower-key role than usual, being an appealing sort as a loving father and husband and a good-guy marshal. This western is a bit different in that the time period is the early 1900s with automobiles and such dotting the landscape.There is not a lot of action in here and not an especially happy ending, either, but it's a good western that worth you while to check out.
