Bad Jim (1990)

John Clark Gable is John Coleman, one of three cowboys who decide there might be more of a future in robbing banks and stages than punching cows following a chance encounter and horse swap with a Mexican bandit named Segura.

After all, Segura once rode with Billy the Kid and his saddlebags are brimming with loot. Rather than riding herd for others, Coleman dreams of one day running a ranch with a herd and hands of his own. He figures $10,000 should do the trick.

So Coleman and partners B.D. Sweetman (James Brolin) and July (Richard Roundtree) rob a bank, find themselves forced to kill two posse members during their escape and set out on what proves to be a not-so-lucrative life of crime.

They’re not all bad. A one point they help save a wagon train under the guidance of Tom Jefferd (Ty Hardin) by swapping a few head of cattle and a couple of horses to the Indians.

Jefferd wants them to stay with the wagon train bound with Montana. But the three partners decline; after all, there’s the promise of a wagon load of silver just waiting to be stolen.

Review:

Bad Jim: Bad film.

Its name comes from the horse Coleman gets in his swap with Segura. Coleman names it Jim after his grandfather. It’s a horse once owned by Billy the Kid. And the swap marks the beginning of the trio’s descent.

John Clark Gable was the son of Clark Gable, born four months after the star’s death. This marked his first appearance in a feature film, and it’s a turkey in the truest sense of the word. From amateurish wanted posters to less than authentic looking extras to a rock song (“Renegades”) played against a backdrop of photos of the trio looking tough and robbing banks, this is just hard to take seriously.

Then there’s the silly “Singing with Your Feet” interlude in a saloon. And a scene in which the horse Bad Jim attacks the grave of his previous owner. Oh, gracious. Not to mention a final shootout in which townsmen waiting in ambush must fire 100 shots without hitting anything.

We do get cameos from Ty Hardin as the wagon master and Rory Calhoun as a ranch hand. Both were in their 60s at the time; this would mark the last time either appeared in a Western.

And by the conclusion, there’s no doubt John Clark Gable isn’t headed in daddy’s footsteps. In fact, as of 2015 he had appeared in just two other films. His mom was actress Kay Williams, who had minor roles in a number of films in the 1940s and would become Clark Gable’s fifth wife.

Directed by:
Clyde Ware

Cast:
James Brolin … B.D. Sweetman
Richard Roundtree … July
John Clark Gable … John Coleman
Harry Carey Jr. … J.C. Lee
Rory Calhoun … Sam Harper
Ty Hardin … Tom Jefferd
Pepe Serna … Virgilio Segura
Pierrette Grace … Mary Ellen Jefferd

Runtime: 90 min.

Memorable lines:

John Coleman, glancing at a town bank: “Don’t look like much.”
B.D. Sweetman: “Now that town marshal, he don’t look like much neither. But I don’t believe they give him that badge just to keep his vest from a floppin’. He’ll look a mite different with a gun in his hand.”

B.D. Sweetman, as July and John talk about all the cattle they’d like to own: “Excuse me, boys. Before you brand all them cows, we better do us some fancy figurin’.”

July, after B.D. has pointed out a posse in the distance: “Ah, come on, B.D., that ain’t nothing but a dust devil.”
B.D. Sweetman: “There’s a devil in that dust alright, wearing a god-damned marshal’s badge.”

Young Mexican boy to the three partners, offering his sisters’ services for the night: “I have a sister for all of you. Two if you like to keep your back warm.”
John Coleman: “I wouldn’t warm my feet with that bunch.”