Miniseries TV Movie Review: **** The Sacketts (1979)

Three brothers head west for their individual reasons, Tell, Orrin and Tyrel Sackett (Sam Elliott, Tom Selleck and Jeff Osterhage).   Orrin and Tyrel get in the cattle business while Tell seeks gold.  Tell accuses a gambler of cheating and the gambler draws on him and kills him, Wes Bigelow (James Gammon).  Consequently the Bigelow brothers, Ira, Benson and Jack (Jack Elam, Gene Evans and Slim Pickens) are all after Tell.  Tell has a partner, Cap (Ben Johnson) who was on a cattle drive with Orrin and Tyrel.  They find gold, and find a young woman, Ange Kerry (Wendy Rastattar) who has been living in the mine for a couple years since her father died.  

After the cattle drive Orrin and Tyrel go after abandoned cattle in the mountains with a former lawyer, gunslinger Tom Sunday (Glen Ford).  The are near Santa Fe where there is a young woman (Ana Alisia) who attracts Tyrel, and another golden haired woman who attracts Orrin.  Her father is Jonathan Pritts (John Vernon) who hopes to control Santa Fe now that it is part of the United States.  He hires gunmen to assert his claim.  The Mexicans are being bullied.  They decide to hold an election for sheriff hoping they can assert their rights instead of being bullied by Pritts.  Orrin and Sunday run, and when Orrin wins Sunday becomes bitter.  He eventually decides to kill Orrin, and Tyrel has to stop him.  Pritts attempts to hire a murder and this is divulged and he is arrested.

In the meantime the Bigelows and their hired men have Tell, Cap and the girl cornered in their mine.  The girl gets away on a horse of the Bigelows, head to town and sends telegram to the brothers in Santa Fe. The Bigelows did not catch up with Orrin, and decided to wait for him in town.   Consequently we have a big gun battle to end the show.  This is a Louis L'Amour book and he is the narrator.  

Tom Selleck Movie: ***Monte Walsh (2003)

 This is a made for T.V. movie with Tom Selleck as Monte Walsh, a long time cowboy who is struggling through a time when ranches are being taken over Consolidated Corporation.  He plays opposite Countess Martine (Isabella Rossellini) whose relationship is also changing because of the change in economics.  People react differently to change.  The representative of the corporation is Sam Brennan (William Devane).  Righting Joe Hooker (James Gammon) runs he and his horse off a cliff to their deaths. Walsh's partner in cowboying is Chet Rollins (Keith Carradine); but he leaves to get married and become a hardware salesman.   Shorty (George Eads) kills a marshall who has come to arrest him for a past bank robbery.  He then turns to stealing with a small band, and ends up killing Chet.   Shorty never breaks that one hard horse to break.  That horse is sold to a wild west company, but Walsh does ride him and break him.  He is offered a job in the show but declines not wanting to turn on himself.  Shorty has gone bad, rustling cattle.  He is without work.  Walsh catches up to him, but lets him go.  He and a partner confront Chet in town at the hardware store seeking money so they can run.  In the confrontation Shorty shoots Chet with a shot gun killing him.  Walsh is now on his trail.  However he hears his girl is sick.  He tries to go see her.  The Countess dies, probably of tuberculosis.  Shorty confronts him there knowing he would come.  This leads to the final gun battle.  

I found this film entertaining.  It was a bit slow at first for a western but overall it was good.  It also added the psychological piece of how people deal with change.  It was produced by Tom Selleck.