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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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James Stewart & Henry Fonda Classic
Cheyenne Social Club is a Classic buddy western that puts to of Hollywood's best together and tells a wonderfully funny and edgy for it's time story. I highly recommend this film. Firecreek is not as well known and not as well told of a story. It's a fare film but much appreciated attachment on this DVD. This double feature is worth having in your library.
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Stewart and Fonda..What a pair
This western double feature disk is worth every penny
The Cheyenne Social Club is a bitter sweet comedy. Stewart inherited a brothel froma deceased brother. Fonda is his saddle buddy who comes alonmg with him. The madam of house is played by Shirley Jones. Stewart finds it hard to manage the ladies. Comedy with western action ensues
FireCreek pits Stewart as farmer/part time Sheriff against gunfighter Fonda with his gang (Gary Lockwood. Jack Elam) who preys upon the small town and its citzens. It has a High Noon-que quality, but seem more sadistic for my taste. It is tend for now, but in the 1970s when this film came out, it was rated M for mature
Both westerns showcase the talents of Fonda and Stewart and these are worth your time
Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD
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Two Good Pairings
This disk contains two westerns, both staring Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda. The pair works well together in very different roles.
The first is a comedy and the second is a drama. In the first they are buddies, in the second they are enemies. In both, they are splendid.
Individual reviews appear below:
THE CHEYENNE SOCIAL CLUB
This One's a Hoot
Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda play a couple of cowboys working on the range. When Stewart gets a letter he is surprised to learn that his bother has died and left him his business. It is a placed called the Cheyenne Social Club. So it is that Stewart and his sidekick, Fonda, set out for Wyoming with the expectation of becoming respectable business men.
Upon arrival, Stewart learns that he is the most popular and respected man in town. He also learns that his social club is a brothel. This strikes him as not being "in his line of work" and he determines to close the place down. That takes him from being the most respected to the most reviled man in town. He has some hard decisions to make and even more trouble appears when he learns that there are contractual agreements between his shop and the railroad. Things get more complicated still when he learns that there are some ruffians roughing up some of his girls.
Stewart is just a nice guy trying to do the "right thing". Eventually, he does...much to his own surprise.
FIRECREEK
Sometimes the Little Guys Win
This is another pairing of Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda in a western.
Stewart plays a farmer, respected by his peers and given the honorary title of sheriff in his town. The tile also comes with a home made tin badge and 20 dollars. It is a sign of esteem and nothing more.
Fonda plays the leader of a group of gunmen with vague notions about law and order. When passing through town, they decide to stop there a little while and rest. Nobody really minds that but they do object to being treated like vermin by the gunmen who get a bit wild when they drink. Fonda does not really approve of what they do but is reluctant to come down on them too hard for fear of alienating them. That means that it is up to the sheriff to keep order.
Keeping order is a hard job. He is not trained and he is certainly no gunfighter. He is just a farmer. The townspeople encourage him just to ignore things in the hope that the bad guys will eventually go away. All are frightened. When a friend is lynched, though, Stewart decides that enough is enough and takes on the whole gang.
This is one of those films in which the little guy manages to stand up to the bully, survive and even win. It comes at a cost, though.
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Two very different Western pairings for Stewart and Fonda
Firecreek probably wouldn't stand a chance in today's market - it's a film dominated by old men with a script that's a very slow burner. Indeed, it's not until the superb last half hour that the film really starts punching its weight. For much of the film, Henry Fonda's gang of hired guns who drift into the one-dog town of Firecreek are more annoyance than genuine threat, but with each incident defused only by a display of anything-for-a-quiet life weakness from the townsfolk and James Stewart's part-time sheriff, violence is inevitable. What is surprising are the character revelations en route: every single character who drifts into this waste basket for lost souls is a wholly inadequate human being in one way or another. Fonda is quietly impressive as a man who can only maintain the authority he needs to stop him from being a nobody by giving in to his gang's wishes to prevent them replacing him. Stewart at first seems too old for the part, but as the film progresses his casting makes more and more sense: as Dean Jagger points out in the film's best scene, this is a town of losers, people who'll settle for what nobody else wants because they know no-one will challenge them for it. Or as Gary Lockwood's young gun puts it, "Ain't nothin' in this town five dollars won't fix." Surprisingly good, and much better directed by Vincent McEveety than you'd expect from a director who spent most of his career commuting between Disney comedies and TV shows.
The DVD has a good 2.35:1 widescreen transfer but the only extra is the original trailer.
Stewart and Fonda's subsequent Western teaming is an altogether more comic affair. The Cheyenne Social Club is a brothel that Stewart's staunchly Republican cowpoke inherits from his wastrel brother, much to his discomfort and the delight of his garrulous sidekick Fonda, who displays a surprising gift for comedy that easily outshines his co-star. It's more cosy than risqué and Gene Kelly's direction is more professional than inspired, but it's a pleasant enough amble even if the jokes are slight and run out somewhere around the one hour mark.
The 2.35:1 transfer is good, but despite sharing the same cinematographer the look of the film is much softer. Extras are the original trailer and a brief vintage behind the scenes short.
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Firecreek/Cheyenne Social Club
I bought this for my husband and they are two of the old westerns he enjoys wathcing.
