Zandy's Bride (1974)

Stupid cowboy marries a foreigner chick desperate to settle down.Gene Hackman is as good as can be expected, but this story goes nowhere fast with episodic scenes that result to a jumbled collage through a seamless lack of continuity. Some supporting actors are good: Susan Tyrell and Eileen Heckart. Some stink: Joe Santos.Dumb character development includes Hackman being too much of a half-wit to soften up to his new wife (Liv Ullman), and also when he goes on hiatus to San Francisco but decides to return to Ullman bearing gifts and a make-over -- Hackman buys all new clothes except for his hat. He likes that floppy old thing stinking on top of his head.Unnecessary western with a predictable and unsatisfying ending.

Gene Hackman was so prolific that even though he has retired from acting for over a decade you can still find a new performance from him even if it is some old, obscure film.This is a bleak, dark but vacant Scandi-drama decades before they came in vogue with added crime mysteries.Gene Hackman is a rugged rancher in the Big Sur. This is an isolated and backward community. A wilderness. He has ordered a mail order bride from Scandinavia. The main reason is that he wants sons who would take over the ranch from him before he gets too old.When the wife arrives he effectively treats her as a slave and even forces himself on her. This is a tell it how it was in the old days in the 19th century.Liv Ullmann plays his wife and she does not take it lying down and is determined to turn the farm into a home and turn him into somewhat respectable. Susan Tyrell plays a floozy that Hackman seems to have has past dalliance with. Hackman is wary of her, this is a clannish community with hints of inbreeding. Hackman does not want bad blood hence why he has got a wife from the outside.There is an outdoor barbecue scene where we learn a little about this isolated community and also Hackman's family life. If you think Hackman is bad, he is a progressive compared to his father. Hackman's mother is very much aware what Ullman is going through and knows how hard life and her own husband has been to her.Hackman and Ullman resolve to make their marriage work and she rewards him with issue. In turns he softens a little, he gets her nice clothes and even a stove from San Francisco.The film is a slow burn drama but not much action. For those of us, myself included whose only experience of The Big Sur is the coastal route to LA to San Francisco or vice-versa this is an insight to a real community that once lived beyond the roads.The film is rewarded with wonderful photography but the film feels empty despite rich performances.

This movie is another poetic gem from the 70's, like McCabe and Mrs. Miller, has a stubborn, sexist male protagonist guiding the plot. His sexism, anger, and controlling character represents the egotism and ignorance of men throughout the ages. They had to learn how to be kind and considerate, but it was hard since they had no reference point in their experience and generations of fathers who acted the same.Gene Hackman's breakthrough happens through the love and strength of Liv Ullman, in one of her all-time great performances.Gene Hackman does a very difficult and dangerous horse riding stunt that has to be seen to be believed.It's a simple Western drama, shot in spectacular scenery which acts as a background character and metaphor that draws you in. If you're bored, watch The Matrix and have it all done for you. This is not slow and plodding as others have said, it follows all the right story beats, moves compellinginly and logically and has an emotionally satisfying ending.

Rugged, impolite frontiersman in Old West Northern California is immediately displeased with his mail-order bride when he sees that she has lied about her age; she's overwhelmed with the remoteness of his shack ("a pigsty") and by her new husband's unwashed, ungainly manner. Swedish director Jan Troell attempts to build momentum in this tumultuous relationship, but he does so like a bricklayer. One can practically check off the scenes from a list: the marriage rape, the visit from the old girlfriend, the husband's injury, the wife brushing out her lustrous hair in front of the fire. Troell is not a formulaic filmmaker, yet this nearly plays like a parody of his earlier "The Emigrants" (with a cartoonish Appalachian-flavored score and by-the-numbers male-female relations). Liv Ullmann's English has greatly improved, though she's still not convincing as a woman "from American stock" and her performance is disappointing; Gene Hackman, cast yet again as a snarling sonuvabitch, is somewhat more suited to the surroundings, but his character has no positive attributes (and watching his 'growth' isn't enlightening or surprising). The cinematography by Jordan Cronenweth and Frank M. Holgate is very good, and there are dramatic scene compositions which are intricate and well-realized, but this script is pretty dusty. *1/2 from ****