classicsoncall Put away your thinking cap for this one, sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Boy, talk about getting from Point A to Point B by the most roundabout way possible, I think Burt Reynolds and crew did it here. The kicker to this whole story had to be melting down the gold bars recovered from the Bonnie Blue, pouring it into a mold of George Washington's bust, and melting it back down into bars to replace the stolen loot at the Denver mint. As a caper movie this one really kept you guessing, and it could have all gone South at any point along the way.I guess if you're going to take this story at face value, you have to accept the idea that Sam Whiskey and his new buddies are going to put a quarter million dollars worth of gold back into the Denver mint from which it was stolen by Laura's now dead outlaw husband, and not be tempted to keep it for themselves. I can't imagine why no one bothered asking Miss Breckenridge where she was getting the twenty grand to pay for the job, but I guess with her figure it didn't really matter.I became a Burt Reynolds fan when I first saw him in "The Longest Yard". No, not the 2005 one with Adam Sandler, the original one where he played Paul 'Wrecking' Crewe. This flick came out a few years earlier and the lack of a mustache makes him look even younger. I'd have to say Sam's (Reynolds) first meeting with Laura Breckenridge (Angie Dickinson) was pretty racy even for 1969.Reynolds had a pretty effective team for the reverse heist if you will, Ossie Davis and Clint Walker had credible character introductions for the roles they would assume in the story. I got a kick out of the signpost in the road that offered the way to Gila Bend and North Fork. For a minute there, I thought Chuck Connors might be right around the corner to join the boys. Old time Western fans will get the reference, everyone else will have to look it up.

Spikeopath Sam Whiskey is directed by Arnold Laven and written by William W. Norton. It stars Burt Reynolds, Ossie Davis, Clint Walker and Angie Dickinson. Music is by Herschel Burke Gilbert and cinematography by Robert C. Moreno. Widow Laura Breckenridge (Dickinson) offers Sam Whiskey (Reynolds) a $20,000 reward for the return of some gold that her late husband had stolen from the Denver mint. However, she doesn't want the gold for herself, she wants Sam to put it back into the mint before it's found to be stolen and soils her family name! Maybe it's because I consider myself a Reynolds fan that I found this to be a whole bunch of fun? That I appear to be at odds with critical consensus about Sam Whiskey's worth as entertainment? Stolen money burns a hole in your pocket. Sam Whiskey knows exactly what it's doing, it mixes the caper movie with a Western setting and lets the principal players have fun with it. The quadruple lead players bounce off of each other with considerable charming results, the set-up is suitably daft, a reverse robbery if you like, and there's no shortage of suspense and action. In fact the various twists that arise as Reynolds, Davis and Walker go about their mission of goodwill for the sultry Dickinson, are well implemented into the plot. The De Luxe colour photography is most pleasing, though the absence of scenic panoramas is sorely felt, and the music score is complementary to the tone of the story. True, the direction is hardly inspiring, the quirky nature of the whole thing narrows down the number of film fans it might appeal to and the idea is indeed thin. Yet for Reynolds fans it should be sought out, to see him at the end of the 60s before "his" time would come in the 70s. Watch him perform with a comedic glint in his eye, see Dickinson smoulder and raise temperatures, Walker play at odds with his macho persona, and Davis having fun being the tough boy of the group. Enjoy the cheekiness (Re: ludicrousness) of the caper, the early diving technique on show or sample the verbal amusement that comes from the stars. I just know I had a big enough grin on my face come the end to make this a strong 7/10 rating. Non Reynolds fans should probably knock a point off that rating, though.

ma-cortes Sam Whiskey (Burt Reynolds , one of his first ever main cast ) is an rogue adventurer , then he's hired by a gorgeous widow (Angie Dickinson ). He must retrieve a treasure recently stolen by her deceased husband from a sunken ship . Sam teams up an African-American blacksmith (Ossie Davis) and a tall inventor (Clint Walker) who designs a diving helmet . But they are followed by a fat man and hoodlums (Anthony James) . Later on , they manage to get hundred pounds of gold bars and put it into a mint house ruled by a stiff-upper-lip superintendent (William Schallert) with anyone aware . This entertaining movie displays western action , fist-play , bemusing caper , shootouts and lively humor . Friendly performance by Burt Reynolds at his first serious attempt to be fun and enticing Angie Dickinson who does a brief nudist exhibition and heavily cut by censorship . This film is one of a number of screen westerns that Burt Reynolds played during the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s . These movie westerns include Fade-in (1965) by Jud Taylor ; Navajo Joe (1966) by Sergio Corbucci ; 100 rifles (1969) by Tom Gries ; The man who loved Cat Dancing (1973) by Richard T Heffron and the overlong TV series Gunsmoke . Good secondary cast , as the veteran William Schallert as mint superintendent , Ossie Davis , Clint Walker and last film of Chubby Johnson , habitual support cast in numerous Westerns ; furthermore , Anthony James , usual baddie of the 70s . Atmospheric musical score and colorful cinematography ; however , the film is made in television style . Director Arnold Laven created his proper production company along with Arthur Gardner and Jules V. Levy in the 50s , at the decade since , they had produced dozens of additional TV Western including ¨Rifleman¨ , ¨Big Valley¨ , ¨Law of the Plainsmen¨ , ¨Zane Grey theater¨ , ¨Gunsmoke¨ and Laven directed several Western movies such as ¨Geronimo¨ , ¨Rought night in Jericho¨ , ¨The glory guys¨ and ¨Sam Whiskey¨ , among others. Rating : Average but amusing.

Wizard-8 Not even Reynolds is able to muster up charm in this fairly dreary western. Actually, though set in the wild west, the movie is more of a caper movie than a western. This wouldn't have been so bad had the capering been exciting and executed with vigor, but it isn't. Some clumsy filming techniques and the production values make it resemble a television production of its era.