Tom Horn (1980)

Steve McQueen plays the legendary frontiersman Tom Horn, veteran of the Apache wars and just the solution ranchers in Wyoming figure they need to stop rustling.

So with John Coble (Richard Farnsworth) serving as intermediary, they offer Horn $200 per rustler who stops rustling. It’s up to him whether that means by way of bullet or by way of being convinced to leave the area.

Horn has no reluctance to use deadly force to get his message across. But his force is a little too deadly for the likes of well-off ranchers, especially when he kills a wounded man in the middle of their town by firing a shot into his back.

So they have their U.S. Marshal Belle (Billy Green Bush) frame Horn for the killing of a teenage sheep herder, then arrest him for the death of the 15-year-old boy.

Next thing you know, Horn is on trial for murder. He faces death without flinching, acknowledging that the West he knew has faded into the past.

Review:

This is a film that serves up some memorable scenes — Horn’s anger after his horse is shot, Horn being beaten with ropes during an escape attempt, a rustler’s attack during a romantic interlude and the contraption they plan to use to hang him are among them.

But all in all, it’s a disappointing film. The biggest problem is that Horn is arrested far too early in the 98 minutes, and the only characters we get to know very well are those who are near tears over his plight, including a deputy he’s assaulted during an escape attempt.

Meanwhile, Linda Evans is wasted in the role of the school teacher. The romantic scenes between Horn and her Glendolene Kimmel seem stitled and off key compared to the rest of the film.

This marked the next to last film for McQueen, who was battling cancer at the time. He’d die of a heart attack at age 50, the same year this movie was released.

Directed by:
William Wiard

Cast:
Steve McQueen … Tom Horn
Linda Evans … Glendolene Kimmel
Richard Farnsworth … John Coble
Billy Green Bush … U.S. Marshal Belle
Slim Pickens … Sheriff Creedmore
Roy Jenson … Lee Mendenhour
James Kling … Arlo Chance
Geoffrey Lewis … Prosecutor Walter Stoll
Harry Northrup … Thomas Burke
Steve Oliver … Gentleman Jim Corbett
Bill Thurman … Ora Haley
Bert Williams … Judge
Peter Canon … Assistant Prosecutor
Elisha Cook Jr. … Stablehand

Runtime: 98 min.

Memorable lines:

Tom Horn: “That’s a mother-in-law horse. You know what a mother-in-law horse is? A mother-in-law horse is a horse you put you mother-in-law on. You send them both up into the hills and hope they never come back.”

Tom Horn: “What is it?”
John Coble: “It’s a lobster.”
Horn: “I’ve never eaten a bug that big before.”

U.S. Marshal Joe Belle: “Do you know who I am?”
Tom Horn: “No.”
U.S. Marshal Joe Belle: “What you were in the Southwest, I was in the Northwest.”
Tom Horn: “I was mostly out of work.”

Tom Horn: “Listen, why are you hangin’ around with me?”
Glendolene Kimmel: “Because you are a link to the Old West.”
Tom Horn: “If you really knew how dirty and raggedy-assed the Old West was, you wouldn’t want any part of it.”

Tom Horn, to the preacher who will oversee his hanging: “How long you’ve had that Bible?”
Preacher: “Oh, about 28 years.”
Horn: “Gor her all bucked out yet?”