adrian-43767 WATERHOLE NUMBER 3 is a great revisionist Western of the 1960s, with Coburn and O'Connor in great comic form. The first shootout in the film was "kinda" imitated by Steven Spielberg in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in 1982, when Harrison Ford just shoots an Arab attacker brandishing a sabre. In this case, Coburn just uses his Winchester rifle to blow away a challenger armed only with a Colt, which he had not even drawn yet (but then you could argue that WATERHOLE borrowed the idea from Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS). The film's unifying element is the song, with some wonderful lyrics, and the sharp-tongued repartee between Coburn and O'Connor, who is particularly comical riding a mule.The "infamous" rape scene is politically incorrect today, but was a laugh when it came out, and if one judges the film on the basis of that anachronism alone, one should not watch movies, let alone review them.Photography, action sequences, acting and direction are all competent. Alas, there is one negative aspect that hurts my rating of the film: the ending is too evasive, fuzzy almost. But, by then, I had certainly had my fun and will certainly re-watch this film at some point.

classicsoncall Maybe this is a movie Hitchcock saw before directing his 1972 picture "Frenzy". In that film, there's a scene of a businessman discussing the story's 'necktie murders' which also involve rape, and he says "I suppose it's nice to know every cloud has a silver lining", as it relates to a victim who was raped before being killed. I couldn't believe it then and I can't believe it with this movie, the attitude taken by the screen writers and director in taking an approach that brushes the subject off as just one of those things. OK, I can understand the parody aspects to the picture as it moves along, but that message of tolerance for a despicable act unnerves me even as I write about it. And to see such talented actors as James Coburn and Carroll O'Connor involved in the denigration of Sheriff John's (O'Connor) daughter was a bit hard to take. Granted, 1967 was a half century ago and I don't mean to go totally PC about it, but it did a lot to detract from this viewer's enjoyment of the picture. Not to mention the way it tarnished the actual comedic moments in the story.

Noah Veil There's a difference between a film ABOUT misogyny and a film that endorses it. This is, unfortunately, the latter. When the rape victim tries to press charges, she's told by James Whitmore, with a total lack of irony, that she is so pretty that no jury would find her rapist guilty since they'd all want to rape her themselves. In the end when the "hero" rides off into the sunset, having just successfully stolen gold from the United States Army AND having taken advantage of his rape victim a second time, Roger Miller sings, once again with a total lack of irony, that he "left the world a better place." No he didn't. He's a thief, murderer, and rapist who gets away with it. I'm no pussy who doesn't like films where the bad guy gets away. Silence of the Lambs is great. It doesn't pretend the world is a better place because Hannibal Lecter gets away in the end. It's ironic, like the end of Taxi Driver. But this film actually believes the world is a better place because of men who stick to their convictions and rob, murder, and rape, as long as they're charming about it. I'm not even saying rape can't be funny, though I'm hard pressed to think of an example. Parts of this film may be funny, but as a whole, it's rotten to the core.

writerasfilmcritic Generally, I don't like it when these comments about movies degenerate to political diatribes, but with the reaction to this movie, I must respond. What the PC crowd doesn't understand about "Waterhole Number 3" is that in it Coburn played an amoral anti-hero who harbored a great degree of cynicism about hypocritical conventions. Therefore, the "horrible rape sequence" that has their panties in such a twist was merely part of his interpretation of how such a man would behave in a lawless environment. It would have been completely out of character for him to suffer an attack of scruples when confronted with a sexy gal alone in a barn. Besides, in the nineteenth century, feminism didn't even exist and women WERE men's playthings, whether Gloria Steinem can handle the concept or not. For them, to be kept barefoot and pregnant was reality, not an archaic state of being ridiculed by glorified lesbians whose primary goal in life is to control their "reproductive rights." Back in them days, folks, pioneer women had up to two dozen kids and lost a good many of the brood to disease, accidents, and murder. The feminine role was well-defined and there was no discussion about it. In point of fact, the "gentle rape" committed by Coburn upon the nubile young woman's tender virginity might not have been considered rape at all simply because he married her afterward. Some other disturbing facts of the era: Gays were not tolerated, let alone allowed to marry, but pistol-whipped merely for thinking their perverted thoughts. Indians, both good and bad, were driven nearly to extinction for daring to believe they had innate rights on the land. Many of the women of today would have been working in whorehouses, not telling the rest of us what constitutes modern standards of morality, either that, or they would have been slapped silly and sent slinking into the corner to mull over the reality of the day. To sit in front of your computer and actually attempt to apply PC hypocrisy to such a wild and lawless era is so absurd that it beyond comprehension. Furthermore,in the sixties (when this movie was made), a woman couldn't go up to a man's room at 2am, have consensual sex, and the next day claim she was raped, like that broad did to Mike Tyson. Such inherently suspicious bs would have been laughed right out of court. There was no such thing as "date rape," "spouse rape," or "sexual harassment." If a man caught his wife in the sack with another man, he could shoot them both and get off with a temporary insanity plea or not even be charged at all. Neurotic Generation X, with their condoms, Ipods, cell phones, piercings, tats, shaved pubic areas, and shallow, money-grubbing ways weren't even born yet, hence interesting flicks like this one could actually be made and distributed. As for the much ballyhooed rape, something very similar happened in "High Plains Drifter" and who complained then? It's a movie, folks. If you can't separate fact from fiction, perhaps you'd better turn off the set and get a life. Not one of you mentioned the gunfight sequence at the beginning of the movie, which set the tone for this film and should have sent you scurrying to turn if off. Challenged by some jerk to a gunfight, Coburn steps out the door of the saloon, casually approaches his mount, pulls out his saddle gun, rests it atop his saddle, and unceremoniously drops the dope who is standing in the middle of the street, stupidly believing that such differences of opinion were supposed to be resolved in a certain way. Coburn thumbs his nose at authority, convention, tradition, and all the rest of the hypocritical nonsense to which our woefully misguided country is devoted to today. Now, it's as if the sixties never even happened. We've got the Bible-thumping, hymn-singing, pew-sitting hypocrites on the one hand, constantly extolling the spectre of their children's tender psyches as an excuse for their own intellectual, spiritual, and moral cowardice, and the man-hating, feminist "global warming" advocates on the other hand. Both groups shouldn't be allowed to watch good movies like this. Their extremely fragile belief systems can't take it.