To me, this movie is perfection.

People are voting emotionally.

A lot of fun.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"Support Your Local Sheriff" is a very funny Western comedy with a supporting cast of actors playing roles against their usual character. Jack Elam has a good-guy role as deputy sheriff. Walter Brennan is a befuddled head of a clan who doesn't get his way by threat or force. Bruce Dern turns wimp when outdrawn and outwitted. Harry Morgan is a mixture of roles, but very funny. All of these characters provide much humor off the mostly straight sheriff, Jason McCullough. James Garner plays the new man in town who take the job of sheriff. But, much of the humor comes also from the sheriff's tricky conversations that the rest don't quite understand. Of course, it helps the sheriff's cause that he can outdraw and outshoot anyone. Beneath this, and interspersed in scenes throughout the film, is a romance building. Joan Hackett's Prudy is the daughter of the mayor, Olly Perkins (played by Morgan). She's smitten by Jason on first sight, and has some very funny scenes as she sets out to snare him. Of course, he's wise to her ways, but nothing will deter him from keeping his gaze on Australia. Oh, yes. He breezes into this Western town looking for work as he rambles his way toward Australia. The town has sprung up over night and is just a few years old after a handful of early settlers discovered gold. All of them struck it rich. Since then, the town hasn't been able to keep a sheriff to control the lawlessness. But that will change with the arrival of Jason. This is a wonderful parody of Western movies in which the Wyatt Earps and Bat Mastersons of real life and legend rode into wild Western towns and tamed them. The film has some funny antics and hilariously funny snippets. One is when Brennan's tough Pa Danby stomps into the sheriff's office and pulls a gun on Jason. The sheriff just sticks his finger in the barrel of the revolver and befuddles Danby. There's a very funny play on words in the name of the house of ill repute. It's called "Madam Orr's House" - painted in huge red letters across the top.Everyone should enjoy this film, although youngsters won't catch some of the humor. Parents can explain it as they see fit. Here are some favorite lines. For more funny dialog, see the Quotes section under this IMDb Web page on the movie. Mayor Olly Perkins, "Takes after her dear departed mother." Sheriff, "Her mother died, huh?" Mayor Perkins, "No, she just departed."Sheriff, "But the mayor seemed to think that my qualifications suited the job perfectly." Jake, "Well, he'd have thought that if you were blind in both eyes and crippled in both legs." Sheriff, "l think you've got the situation pegged, Jake."Jake, "I was raised up in Indiana." Sheriff, "Well, that could be either good or bad."Sheriff, "Pretty sloppy shootin,' Jake." Jake, "Well, I was in a hurry to save your life. I wasn't tryin' to group my shots." Sheriff, "If you'd have been standing five feet further away, you'd have missed him entirely."Sheriff, to Joe Danby, "He won't mind you murdering that man. He just doesn't like for you to get caught, huh?"Sheriff, "You meaning, whoever marries her gets the mine?" Mayor Perkins, "Shaft and all."Sheriff, "Well, when you set out to clean up a mess, you don't just sit around while the mess gets bigger and bigger."Mayor Perkins, "I guess you know what you're doing, sheriff." Sheriff, "I don't know what I could have said to give you that idea, mayor."Pa Danby, "I don't want nobody to make no martyr out of this here sheriff." Tom Danby, "What's a martyr?" Pa Danby, "Oh, I'm sorry. They didn't use words like that in the third grade, did they?" Tom Danby, "How would I know? I didn't get that far."Tom Danby, "You remember when I was stuck all those years in the second grade?" Luke Danby, "Oh, shut up."Sheriff, "Did he seem to feel any sorrow over the fact that we might all be killed?" Jake, "No. It's more like he planned to dance and spit all over our graves." Sheriff, "Sounds like Jake."

Still looking good, the old Maverick himself, James Garner, rides into an old West boom town and generally takes over with understated good humor and a lightning gun that doesn't get much of a workout. The genre parody takes off right from the start with a nice view of Madame Orr's House, and if you didn't get the hint this was going to be a spoof right then and there, you probably weren't paying attention. With Jack Elam on board, you never quite know if he's going to be a good guy or a villain, so when he backs up the new sheriff at the saloon, you have the makings of a clever team up. As with almost everything else in the story, Jason McCullough's (Garner) romancing of the mayor's daughter (Joan Hackett) comes slow and easy, and you had to get a kick out of their cowardly/mature conversation right before the shootout with the Danby's. I'd have to say the cannon gimmick with Joe Danby (Bruce Dern) was pretty clever, but did you notice? Right after Prudy shot two of the Danby kin out of the thirteen that arrived to help out Pa (Walter Brennan), there were still thirteen lined up against McCullough and the cannon. Makes you wonder whether thirteen was their lucky number or not.

For anyone who grew up on 1950s and '60s westerns (both TV shows and movies), this thing is a hoot. I know Roger Ebert in 1969 gave it a two out of four stars, and panned it for being what it quite precisely intended to be: spoof penance for all those old Western character actors...including Elam, Morgan, even star James Garner himself, being punished for Maverick (or reprising his best western role, take your pick). Even the over-the-top western music which critics deplored (a separate character unto itself, very much a part of the spoof and equally hilarious), was clearly intentional. But what this was for me (I just watched it after a few beers and several decades of avoidance), was a nostalgic laugh fest. And something else: This was James Garner at the top of his ironic game, preparing for his best and probably most popular role ever, two or three short years later: Jim Rockford. For Garner this was less a Maverick spoof retrospective, more like: What if Jim Rockford stepped through a time warp and arrived in an 1880s madcap western gold rush town? It's not Peckinpah or Eastwood or Leone, not even Mel Brooks slapstick. But it's good western comedy, nonetheless, and it is GREAT Garner.

There are only a handful of comic Westerns and this one shines bright among them. James Garner plays a low-key fellow passing through a lawless town on his way to Australia, only to end up becoming its sheriff. He gets rid of the riffraff using his wit as much as his quick-draw. Town doofus Jack Elam becomes his deputy, and Joan Hackett is his tomboy-ish love interest. Harry Morgan plays Hackett's father and the town's mayor. Things get stirred up pretty fast after Garner arrests nasty cowpoke Bruce Dern for killing someone. Papa Walter Brennan and his other sons ride into town to spring Dern and get rid of the new sheriff. This proves easier said than done. Garner keeps things light and breezy in this mostly bloodless western, and Elam, Morgan and Hackett lend him able support throughout. Followed by an inferior effort called "Support Your Local Gunfighter."