Movie review - "The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw" (1958) **1/2

Many of Kenneth More's films in the late 50s were aimed towards the American market, not to much success. This was perhaps his most concerted attempt to crack it there, complete with American director (Raoul Walsh), co-stars and an especially constructed plot aimed at using More's appeal in a way to cross over to Americans: it's a fish out of water comedy, with More as an English gun salesman who goes Out West and encounters gunslingers, saloon gals, and Indians. The joke is meant to be that the locals think he's a dab hand with guns when he's not - but he's gun salesman so the fish isn't really out of water.

More does his Kenneth More thing with aplomb: the cheery, hail-fellow-well-met Englishman abroad, able to get along with everyone whether they are Indians or gunslingers, but a stickler for rules and proper behaviour, unshowily brave. His co-star, Jayne Mansfield, is a major debit - her performance is dreadful, and they don't even put her in any revealing outfits, despite appearing in a saloon show (although she does get to mime a decent tune, 'I Love You'). She and More don't have much chemistry either. William Campbell, Henry Hull and Bruce Cabot all give the sort of supporting actors in Western films you'd expect them to give regardless of the star. Sid James is in it too as a drunk.

It's amiable enough: More's in good form, the depiction of the Indians is sympathetic, the colour photography is pleasing. The running gag about the undertaker being constantly disappointed that More isn't killed surely was old even at the time and they milk the concept of More being a blood brother to the Indians for all it's worth. It's a shame Robert Morely didn't decide to come out west (he's in the beginning and that's it).