I had missed out on this when it was shown as a weekday matinée' on Italian TV ages ago while not particularly outstanding, it's a thoroughly engaging (and attractively shot, mostly in exteriors) Western spoof with an amiable and willing cast led by Dean Martin (typically relaxed playing a Texan cattleman), Alain Delon (handsome and charming as a Spanish aristocrat), Rosemary Forsyth (her Southern belle is delightful), Tina Marquand (a cute Indian squaw) and Joey Bishop (in the role of Martin's wisecracking "Kronk" sidekick).Though the latter is nominally entrusted with carrying the film's comic relief, the other redskins ("Comanche") actually provide the funniest moments especially the antics of the chief's inept son (trying at one point to shoot a flaming arrow, he contrives to set his Dad's feathered cap on fire!
I watched this on the Starz Western network on a Sunday morning. I had set my DVR to record Alain Delon films looking for more of his French crime films, notably Le Cercle Rouge.
Alain Delon is one of my favorite actors. Basically, that's how I came across the movie and decided to watch it.
Dean Martin liked making Westerns, and he made some that were quite good -- "Rio Bravo" (of course), "The Sons Of Katie Elder", and "Five Card Stud". And then there were a couple that were ringers, and I always felt this was one of those.
The mid sixties...back before we were so culturally/politically correct...
I'm not a big fan of most Western movies but I do enjoy comedy and as this was a comedy Western I found myself enjoying it.
I have always been a fan of Alain Delon and preferred Dean Martin to the rest of the Rat Pack, so when TEXAS ACROSS THE RIVER came on a nearby theater in the early 70s, I dared not to miss it, and there I was for the first night. And a good decision that was, because at the very end of the last reel, the projector caught alight, the theater closed for a couple of nights, and TEXAS ACROSS THE RIVER never showed there again!
When this film was made back in 1966,I don't think there was a "genre"of film parodies,I guess they just called them "comedies".Well welcome to the earliest western comedy I can remember.
Don Andre de Baldasare was set to marry Pheobe Ann Naylor of Louisiana; after an affair of honor goes wrong, he has to flee across the river, into the wilds of Texas. Once arrived, he meets encounters Sam Hollis and his Indian sidekick, the Karonkawa Indian, Kronk, who are transporting rifles to the town of Moccasin Flats.
