Lively star Western vehicle in comedy vein, patterned after NORTH TO ALASKA (1960) and with a "Taming Of The Shrew"-like plot that recalls THE QUIET MAN (1952; with the same leads) both of which, incidentally, I haven't watched in a long time!
As John Wayne grew older, his films settled into being safe and unassuming family fare which this one certainly is, making it undeniably the least of the Batjac films released on DVD so far! Through all these films, he managed to surround himself with reliable talent on both sides of the camera many of whom were already a part of "The John Wayne Stock Company". The script by James Edward Grant, Wayne's favorite writer, provides plenty of amusing situations which are gleefully met by the cast (particularly Chill Wills, Jack Kruschen and Strother Martin) including a free-for-all in the mud, a fist-fight during a town celebration, a drunken encounter with a flight of stairs and the come-uppance of both female members (Maureen O' Hara and Stefanie Powers) of the McLintock family at the hands of the Waynes (father John and son Patrick respectively) though the ponderous subplot involving the Comanches' last stand (headed by Michael Pate) feels somewhat incongruous alongside the brawling and the slapstick and should, perhaps, have been dropped altogether.
The supplements are of a similarly high quality as the rest of the Paramount "Batjac" releases: the Audio Commentary here is especially engaging for the way it places the film in the context of both Wayne's career and the revisionist attitude the Western genre would go through immediately afterwards; interestingly, as was the case with HONDO (1953), it's also mentioned that John Ford was asked to direct some sequences when the films' respective director became indisposed! Incidentally, I'll be watching the similarly boisterous DONOVAN'S REEF (1963) soon a film that has eluded me all these years despite being a perennial on Italian TV! and which proved to be the last of the innumerable collaborations between Wayne and Ford...
