The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw

The son of a long-established family firm of gunsmiths in Victorian London (Kenneth More) decides to look for new business in the American west. In the remote desert outpost of Fractured Jaw, he wins respect through his own invention of a miniature wrist-mounted pistol, and is declared local sheriff - a job nobody else has dared to accept, because of two violent local gangs.

Raoul Walsh had an interesting career, going from acting as John Wilkes Booth in D.W.

I do not get the haters towards The Sheriff Of Fractured Jaw. It is not Shane, The Searchers or The Big Country, it is a western spoof ( like Paleface, Son of Paleface and Ruggles Of Ted Gap).

This is a slightly above average Comedy Western, with Kenneth More in the lead role, More an English Gentleman being out of his comfort zone does well as the fish out of water Sheriff.The tragic Jayne Mansfield looked great as the Saloon owner, although maybe a bit too much red lipstick, but acted OK as well.

I just loved this film. Kenneth Moore was inspired as the English gentleman buffoon.

By all means, not perfect, the story is rather predictable in that it uses the somewhat over-used fish-out-of-water formula, and there are one or two scenes due to the chemistry, the effectiveness of which is varied throughout the course of the film, of the leads feel laboured. However, The Sheriff of Fractured is a lovingly filmed movie with cinematography, sets and costumes set in the grand tradition of the genre that look beautiful, and there is a witty soundtrack including the touching In the Valley of Love.

I thought this would be the silliest movie ever, so silly that I would turn it off. It was actually really cute, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Kenneth Moore usually had a very acute sense of his acting limitations and the type of appearance which would use the talents he undoubtedly had to the full. He was thus usually very enjoyable to watch, ('Genevieve', 'The Thirty Nine Steps'.

In the first place, the cliché of the "fish out of water" might be over-used now, but it was hardly over-used in 1958. There are echoes of Bob Hope's Paleface and Son of Paleface, but those were ten years earlier.