So managed to get hold of a copy of 'A Talent for Loving' from a rare video site. Clue: If a film's hard to get hold of, sometimes there's a really good reason for that. Like with this one. Because... it's really, really awful. I mean, bad in so many ways. Seriously.
First off, I didn't really research it beforehand which may have been just as well because the genre 'Comedy Western' is not one that particularly appeals. Comedy is OK in its place and if well done, and Westerns played straight can be either pure Greek tragedy or film noir, but mix the two together and you get the most appalling mess. Like this.
Made in 1969, this is full of the cinematography and overdone looks of the time (think big hair and lots of very heavy makeup). It's set on the Western frontier somewhere at the turn of the century somewhen (it's all very vague) with white settlers, Spanish landowners, Mexican bandits and Indians, all intertwined in a comedy of love based on the extremely convoluted relationships between the various sons and daughters of each set of peoples and more sexual innuendo - though far less Sid James-type laughter - than a Carry-On film of the same era. Throw in an ancient Aztec curse that drives the Spanish family (on one side) and the Mexican family (on the other) to sexual insatiability and a gambler (Widmark) who's willing to lose a poker game to marry a girl he's only just met but heavily fallen for - well, that's it, really.
I suppose it could be 'Carry On' heritage since it's partly British made, though I'm afraid that's nothing to be proud of. Though it does feature a young Derek Nimmo being terribly English and very charming - and he does end up with the girl... I doubt that's actually spoiling anything since no-one that isn't a die-hard and desperate Widmark fan would ever bring themselves to sit through this. And even those that are are likely to do it only once.
First off, I didn't really research it beforehand which may have been just as well because the genre 'Comedy Western' is not one that particularly appeals. Comedy is OK in its place and if well done, and Westerns played straight can be either pure Greek tragedy or film noir, but mix the two together and you get the most appalling mess. Like this.
Made in 1969, this is full of the cinematography and overdone looks of the time (think big hair and lots of very heavy makeup). It's set on the Western frontier somewhere at the turn of the century somewhen (it's all very vague) with white settlers, Spanish landowners, Mexican bandits and Indians, all intertwined in a comedy of love based on the extremely convoluted relationships between the various sons and daughters of each set of peoples and more sexual innuendo - though far less Sid James-type laughter - than a Carry-On film of the same era. Throw in an ancient Aztec curse that drives the Spanish family (on one side) and the Mexican family (on the other) to sexual insatiability and a gambler (Widmark) who's willing to lose a poker game to marry a girl he's only just met but heavily fallen for - well, that's it, really.
I suppose it could be 'Carry On' heritage since it's partly British made, though I'm afraid that's nothing to be proud of. Though it does feature a young Derek Nimmo being terribly English and very charming - and he does end up with the girl... I doubt that's actually spoiling anything since no-one that isn't a die-hard and desperate Widmark fan would ever bring themselves to sit through this. And even those that are are likely to do it only once.
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