meritcoba With a title that was later reused for another movie, one would expect that this western would show at least one gun fight, you know like the one at the OK corral, but this movie hasn't one. What the title is referring to is a mystery and that is probably the key word for this western.Now the first mystery is the mysterious stranger played by Sam Elliott. Sam Elliot? Yep, the same. I am probably like many other people who instantly respect a man like Sam Elliott without actually knowing why. Sam Eliott is known, but if you ask me to tell you what from I have a hard time to tell you. Sam Elliott is a decent actor, but apparently not considered to be able to carry a leading part in a major movie. Or at least.. I can't recall one. But never mind about that. Here Sam has a leading role. Now the mysterious part about the mysterious stranger points to an overarching mystery. The question to ask is: why? Why does Sam Elliot help this family that is riding out, all alone, into the wilds? Why is this family braving the wilds on there own? The reason supplied is that they go to some place to breed cattle on the invitation of a family member, but still.. is traveling on your own such a good idea? Why are the bad guys sitting around in some forlorn village, consisting of 4 houses, lacking any inhabitants? Were they waiting for this single family to happen along so they could rob them, kill the men (a man and his son) and rape the woman? It remains a mystery.Another mystery: there is an half breed Indian helping them.. why? He just happens along, gets a drink and he is the best of mates with these bad dudes. Again we don't know why.So these bad dudes steal the horses of the family.. and thus the story kicks in. The husband of the family gets the horses back, covered by the mysterious stranger who shoots one of the bad dudes. And the bad guys then want revenge. While the family treks through the wild hoping to outrun the bad dudes, the bad dudes try to catch up with them. Several times they do catch up, which results in some fighting which whittles down the group of bad dudes.. who thus thirst even more for blood. The story then follows a rather linear plot and ends in a predictable way. It is nothing to write home about. And again another mystery rises: the family went out in the wilds to do some cattle raising. Where is the cattle? They didn't bring any along.. and the hut they end up in seems to be in some valley in between mountains. Not the kind of country one would associate with cattle raising.The whole story is like that: a mystery as to why people do what they do. But the greater mystery is just the failure to make more of this story. The mysterious stranger confesses himself to be a half breed, just like the half breed Indian who helps the bad guys. One would expect something to result from this. They could have been brothers. They could have been anything more than adversaries, but nothing develops. There is a potential conflict between the mysterious stranger and the husband in the family, but even that sizzles out to nothing.The story is bland. It is not the acting that makes this movie mediocre on it's own. It is the lackluster plot that is pretty linear and shies away from anything interesting.This movie is a forgettable movie.

MBunge Adapted from a Louis L'Amour book and made for television by HBO back when it was still trying to define itself as something other than "that movie channel on cable", The Quick and the Dead is a tale of independence, revenge, forbidden romance and the brutal truth of survival in the Wild West. It contrasts the larger-than-life persona of the frontiersman with the understated character of the settler and grapples with what it means to be an honorable man in a lawless land. Highlighted by a charismatic performance from Sam Elliott, as if there's any other kind, and an old fashioned plot that cares more about making sense than rushing from one scene to the next, this film is proof that great Westerns are always being made. People just aren't always paying attention.Duncan McKaskel (Tom Conti) is a Civil War veteran who came out of the horrors of Gettysburg with a loathing for violence. With his handsome wife (Kate Capshaw) and young son (Kenny Morrison), Duncan is leading his family into the Wyoming territory to make a new life for them all. In the middle of almost nowhere, the McKaskels run afoul of a gang of worthless toughs led by the smart but lazily evil Doc Shabitt (Matt Clark). Only the assistance of a traveling gunman named Con Vallian (Sam Elliott) saves the McKaskel's from an early death and helps them flee across the wilderness with Shabitt and his men in pursuit. But Vallian isn't motivated by the pureness of his heart. He only got involved to kill a half-breed (Patrick Kilpatrick) riding with Shabitt and has his eyes on Duncan's wife.There's really only two complaints you can make about The Quick and the Dead. Since most of the movie sees Shabitt's gang getting killed one at a time, there's never that much sense of external danger to the McKaskels and Vallian. And the make-up applied to Patrick Kilpatrick to pass him off as an Indian instead gives him the look of an Oompaloompa with gigantism. Con Vallian is supposed to be a half-breed too, but they didn't slap a bunch of goop on Sam Elliott's face. Perhaps they should have simply found an actor who looked slightly less white than a guy named Patrick Kilpatrick.Other than that, this is a fine motion picture. The lack of external threat is more than compensated for by the internal dynamic between the McKaskels and Vallian. First, it establishes that Vallian is basically using this family for his own ends, distracting Shabitt and his gang so Vallian has a shot at the half-breed. It gives an edge to Vallian's presence as a challenge to Duncan as a man, as a hero to his son an a potential lover to his wife. The conflict between those two men is at the heart of this story and the scales aren't tipped to one side or the other. Duncan isn't presented as a hapless sad sack. He's a brave and admirable man who's out of his depth and knows it.Indeed, there's a good bit of this that plays like a romance novel where the woman is caught between the good man she married and the mysterious bad boy who rides into their lives and it's how Vallian handles that situation that truly reveals whether he's a hero or a villain. And it's all handled with a minimal amount of melodrama because there's no room for that stuff in the hard land of 1876 Wyoming. This isn't about Duncan or Vallian being the better man. It's about people who have enough respect for each other to not let their emotions overwhelm them.The Quick and the Dead makes you wish Sam Elliott had been born several decades earlier so he could have made dozens and dozens of Westerns at the peak of the genre's popularity. Tom Conti is no slouch, though. He endows Duncan McKaskel with a strength that isn't as ostentatious as Vallian's but is ever present. Matt Clark is an effective villain who finds himself undone by his commitment to his own villainy and Kate Capshaw is quite good as a woman growing into the expanded role both allowed and demanded of her by the frontier.This is a quality Western. Yes, it does look and feel like a TV move instead of a big screen product but don't hold that against it. You won't regret slowing down to watch The Quick and the Dead.

senorchiste I'm a western fan and a Sam Elliott fan, so this should have been right up my alley, but I felt the film fell drastically short. The story had potential, but the writers of this film made some questionable choices in dialog. Also, I feel that the director should have demanded more of his actors, especially those playing Mr. McKaskel and his son. Their dialog in particular seemed stilted most of the time. In addition, there are several cuts that seem off-timing and distract from the story. However, Sam did do a good job, and had his supporting cast's talents been brought out better and exhibited more, I feel that the movie would have been much more enjoyable

padutchland-1 Yep, the reason is the man who wrote it - Louis L'Amour. Most of his stories, although about tough men, always had women in them - and they were strong women. Women with common sense who knew how to get things done. In the Quick and the Dead it was Susanna McKaskel played by Kate Capshaw. Sam Elliott had it right when he said she was a handsome woman. Kate Capshaw was indeed beautiful in this film. She reminded me of a clean-scrubbed, Debbie Boone type "real" woman! At least in this movie, who knows what is in anyone's home life. In the story, she is traveling by covered wagon with her husband and son to a new log cabin home in the wilderness. They had set off alone due to disease sweeping the wagon train. They are beset by a group of "bad guys" who follow them relentlessly, thinking they can steal their horses, goods and one of the outlaws wants Kate. Of course they never figured on Sam Elliott as Con Vallian mixing in to help the pilgrims. I'm not going to give the details of the story away, except to say it was well done and one of those movies that you "know", that's the way it really was in the old West - not fancy dressed gunslingers parading up and down the town street. The western landscape was beautifully photographed. This is a Conagher type movie that is down to earth with hard living and real drama. As for the actors of course Sam Elliott is always great, with his smartest move marrying that pretty Katharine Ross in real life. He fits in somewhere between John Wayne and Clint Eastwood in the resourceful, tough guy roles. And he has that deep voice that allows no argument. He has so many great movies to his name like Gettysburg, We Were Soldiers, Conagher, Road House and Shadow Riders. He's a top hand at acting. Tom Conti as Duncan the husband was a bit of a disappointment for me. Not that there was anything wrong with his acting, he is good. I just think he was miscast and looked too much like a soft modern man instead of a disillusioned ex soldier from the Civil War taking on the extremely dangerous trek to the West. Then again that was the part he was playing, and if it hadn't been for that lean, mean mountain man helping, he and his family would have been dead. Kate Capshaw whose real last name is Nail, got her name from first husband Robert Capshaw. Then she married Steven Spielberg, her director in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Spielberg may be way out in left field politically, but he sure knows how to choose a good woman for a wife. Unfortunately, Kate's career has been up and down but don't think she has to worry with the Spielberg bucks. I like Kate's style and wish hubby Steven would get her more work back into the movies. The McKaskel's young son in the movie is played by Kenny Morrison. He was no Brandon De Wilde in Shane, but did fairly well for the part given him. He continues to work in film including some CSI TV work. He is just coming into his prime so who knows. The actor playing the half-breed Indian tracker was Patrick Kilpatrick is certainly a good actor. However, I'd have liked to see a real American Indian play the part, but I guess they couldn't find a Graham Greene. I have to mention the leader of the outlaws, Matt Clark. This guy has been in so many movies and TV shows his face is like a member of the family. I've never seen him do a bad acting job - he's a professional. I especially remember his great supporting acting in Emperor of the North Pole as the yard worker bullied by Earnest Borgnine, a part in The Outlaw Josey Wales and a host of others. I have no idea why another movie in 1995, took the same title as this The Quick and the Dead. It's a silly excuse for a Western fantasy starring Sharon Stone, and who knows why a good actor like Gene Hackman would associate himself with it. Stone doesn't surprise me as she uses her sexuality to get roles then pretends she is morally superior in real life. Be sure not to confuse the two movies - the Louis L'Amour/Sam Elliott 1987 version is the real Western. If you like westerns with a truer to life flavor, and if you like Louis L'Amour, this movie will appeal to you. It is well worth watching.