The Rare Breed

Plot synopsis:
English women Martha Price (Maureen O'Hara) and her daughter Hilary (Juliet Mills) come to the US via boat with Hereford stock pursuing the dream of Martha's husband, who accidentally died on board, to bring Hereford to the West. They're now left with Hilary's bull, a result of years of European breeding, named Vindicator. Vindicator exhibits all the gentility of breeding, including an odd willingness to follow Hilary merely at the whistle of "God Save the Queen".
At auction, he results in a bidding war and is ultimately won by Charles Ellsworth (David Brian), who has come to purchase stock for the wealthy Texas rancher Alexander Bowen (Brian Keith). Sam Burnett (James Stewart), a local wrangler known for being able to take down bulls just by looking at them, is hired to transport the bull to Bowen's ranch. Ellsworth has bought the bull primarily to woo Martha, and when she is confronted by him when trying to claim her payment for the bull she decides to ensure Vindicator's delivery by accompanying him en route.
Martha Price is told by daughter Hilary about a conversation she overheard between Burnett and two men working for competing rancher John Taylor (Alan Caillou). Burnett has made a deal with Taylor to steal the bull. Hilary doesn't yet know that Burnett has made the deal mostly to ensure another wrangler doublecrossed by Taylor would receive some money to take care of himself after an injury. One of Taylor's men, Deke Simons (Jack Elam), gets into a fight with Burnett in the saloon over terms. Price, witnessing the brawl, comes to trust Burnett. Despite Burnett's objections, he accepts responsibility for the Price women through the train ride to the west and the following wagon trail.
One night while Price and Burnett are brewing coffee over the campfire, a shot knocks over the coffee pot. Burnett knows this is a signal from Taylor's men. Just before dawn, Hilary catches Burnett as he is about to hand over the bull. He denies her accusations, waking her mother to prove he was innocent. Once again, Price gives Burnett the benefit of the doubt.
Taylor's men find a fence which has been hacked through to make way for Price's wagon. They conclude that Burnett must have double-crossed them. Simons, determined to catch up with Burnett, shoots a companion and rides on after the wagon.
In a canyon, Burnett runs into Jamie Bowen (Don Galloway), Alexander's son, who has stolen a herd of his father's longhorn cattle and is running away to start his own ranch. Simons catches up and shoots a cowhand, setting off a stampede. Jamie tries to escape but falls in the path of the charging cattle.
Battered and unconscious, Jamie is carried by Burnett back to the wagon. Simons is there holding Price and her daughter hostage. Simons demands the money that Burnett was paid by Taylor for the bull. Simons also demands Price's money, but while distracted, Burnett is able to take his rifle. Simons mounts and gallops away. Burnett follows. As horses collide, Simons falls onto a sharp rock and is killed instantly.
Burnett returns with the money, but Price berates him for his dishonesty and the trouble he has caused. After a few days of travelling with Bowen's son in tow, they reach their destination, his father's ranch.
At the ranch they're introduced to Jamie's father, Bowen, a Scottish soldier turned cattle rancher at a fort also populated by local families of Mexican heritage. While Hilary nurses Jamie back to health, Martha begins teaching the local children in school. Though Bowen and Burnett insist the Price women should leave for the East again before they're snowed in, they refuse until Jamie is well and they've taught the men to properly care for Vindicator.
Bowen continues to insist that Hereford cattle can't make it through the tough conditions on the range and thus make them a bad match. Martha and Hilary insist, and slowly, Burnett is coming over to their side. Martha, upon witnessing the wildness of the longhorn cattle, realizes that until Vindicator proves himself, they'll never have the men on their side. Hilary races back to the fort, and releases Vindicator into the wild.
With Vindicator now in the wild to fend for himself and Jamie on the mend, the Price women announce it is time for them to go, but Jamie insists he's in love with Hilary, who returns the proclamation and Martha, upon seeing them, realizes she needs to stay as well. This suits both Bowen, who's realized he's in love with Martha, and Burnett, who's known he loved Martha since they met.
It is a particularly brutal winter and Burnett insists on finding Vindicator and bringing him back to shelter him all winter. Through repeated outings, he can't find the bull and while he's away, Bowen cleans himself up, begins serving tea and showing Martha his gentlemanly side in an attempt to woo her.
Burnett is reported missing and the men finally find him, almost frozen. Bowen insists that he can have any calves that result from Vindicator, but surely the bull is dead. Burnett refuses to give up hope, even though Hilary and Martha have come to accept this as truth.
When the spring finally breaks, Burnett begins searching for Vindicator again, hoping for calves and begins building a new kind of farm—where the animals are treated better and Herefords can not only subsist but thrive. He finally discovers Vindicator, long dead under a snowdrift. He still insists that calves may be coming.
Martha, out of reluctance for anything else, agrees to marry Bowen, but only after there is no chance of calves from Vindicator. In one of the last scenes, Burnett finally finds a Hereford calf, brings him back to the fort, and proclaims his love for Martha. Bowen steps aside.
At the end, we're shown an entire field of Herefords, with Martha and Burnett musing that they're glad they kept a "few LongHorn, to remember the way it used to be". Hilary and Jamie approach, now married, and Hilary whistles in the hopes that one of the cattle will respond, and claims, "sometimes, I see a glimmer of him in one of them".

Tags: cult, murder, violence

Review:
Middle-aged cowboy James Stewart agrees to transport Maureen O'Hara's Hereford bull (the first in North America) to to it's new owner Brian Keith, while at the same time making an underhanded deal to deliver it to a rival cattleman.
Things get complicated when O'Hara and her daughter take it upon themselves to accompany Stewart.This light-hearted western is offbeat and original enough to provide some entertainment and Stewart is great as the reluctant champion of a new breed of bull, but the story just isn't as compelling as it should have been and sometimes pretty silly, especially Keith (under a mountain of hair!) as a backwards Scottish rancher.Jack Elam and Ben Johnson make the most of their limited roles as a vicious saddle-tramp and Stewart's aging, crippled mentor..
The Rare Breed is the second of four films James Stewart did with director Andrew V.
In this film Stewart brought a breeding bull together with his owners, Maureen O'Hara and Juliet Mills.
Of course in the film it involved some sacrifice in regard to some notions the women had, especially Juliet Mills who regards the bull Vindicator as a family pet.Stewart's character, Sam 'Bulldog' Burnett has a bit of the rogue to him, but he certainly turns out to be the decent reliable Jimmy Stewart that movie audiences for three generations loved.
In her memoirs Maureen O'Hara said that some scenes she states she stole from Jimmy Stewart got cut from the final print.
I'm sure that was what she was referring to although it's pure speculation as to the reason for the edit.But if Maureen was worried about scene stealing, the guy who stole the film completely is Brian Keith.
Maureen has a civilizing affect on him and Keith becomes a rival to Stewart for her affections.
He's quite a sight in the uniform of his former Highland regiment playing the bagpipes.The Rare Breed doesn't rank up there with most of the Anthony Mann westerns of the Fifties.
Michener not only saw it, but liked it a lot since the basic plot line about the great British bull being brought to America by an English widow and then dying in a record blizzard after leaving his stamp on a new generation of crossbreeds is used almost verbatim in "Centennial" which was published nine years after this film was released.Anyway, what I saw I enjoyed.
I can't not enjoy O'Hara, Stewart and Keith!!!.
McLaglen's "The Rare Breed" (1966) has a surprising amount of historical interest, both to students of the old west and to western genre film buffs.
It is actually a fairly accurate (if fictionalized) account of the displacement of Longhorn cattle on the Texas range by intentional interbreeding with more conventional bulls (in this case a Hereford named Vindicator).Just as interesting is the film's position as one of the early intentional parodies of the western genre.
The most obvious are Brian Keith's overplayed (almost expressionistic) Scotsman and McLaglen's juxtaposition of classic John Ford outdoor scenery with obvious sound stage shots-including matte paintings by Albert Whitlock.
And McLaglen rounds out his cast with genre favorites Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., and Jack Elam.But "The Rare Breed's" real claim to fame is as the first "chick flick" western.
It is likely to appeal more to women than men viewers as the story is told from the point of view of its heroine Hilary Price (Juliet Mills), who sets out with her parents to bring a small herd of cattle from Hertfordshire (England) to the American west.
Unfortunately her father dies on the ocean voyage so Hilary and her mother Martha (Maureen O'Hara) are faced with the daunting task of completing what had been her father's dream.
Yet Mills gets all the really good lines as Hilary injects a lot of wit and wry humor into the story.
McLaglen gives real dimension to only two of the characters, Hilary and "Bulldog" Sam Burnett (Jimmy Stewart).
Burnett is a cowhand who starts out to swindle the two women but ends up being completed by them; eventually becoming a father/husband replacement to Hilary and Martha respectively, as well as a complete believer in their mission to change the nature of the American cattle industry.But Burnett has to come a long way to make this transition as he begins by calling the symbolically named Vindicator a muley bull (because it has no horns).
The bull follows her around like a dog and is easily quieted with a verse from "God Save the Queen".
Unfortunately the scenes between Keith and O'Hara will make you think more of Disney's original "The Parent Trap" than the film you thought you were watching.Then again, what do I know?
This western has much going for it: great stars (Jimmy Stewart, Maureen O'Hara, and Brian Keith), interesting plot twists (is Stewart's character a thief, after all), and some comedic moments (Brian Keith is a hoot as Scottish cattle baron).
It was cute how Juliet Mills (sister of Hayley) got that Hereford bull to follow her by whistling "God Save the Queen".
Juliet added quite a bit to the movie, and she was a good balance to the humorous triangle of Keith, O'Hara, and Stewart.
Some reviews are harsh, yet the questions remains--How could anyone not enjoy a movie with Jimmy Stewart in it?.
Attractive and charming Western with big name cast and top-notch performance from James Stewart.
It stars the great James Stewart as an ageing cowboy hand who helps two English women , as he is still looking for a deep dream and blazing with determination .
As a ranch hand agrees to escort a Hereford bull to Texas where the widow of an English breeder , the prissy Mauren O'Hara, and daughter , Juliet Mills , plan to crossbreed the big bull with longhorn cattle .
Stewart acquires a a fanatical belief on the potential of the bull and he sets out in blizzard to prove it .Amusing Western comedy including action , stampede , thrills , shootouts , fights , human as well as warm roles and a love story .
The plot is plain and simple , as a widow insists that she and her daughter accompany Stewart on a dangerous trip which features every kind of Western calamity imaginable .
James Stewart gives an attractive acting as an obstinate cowboy who stubbornly wishes to get the crossbread when all others believe the attempt to be failed and he sets out to prove them wrong .
And charming performances from Mauren O'Hara , Juliet Mills, and a red bearded Brian Keith as an extravagant Scots-accented rancher who has a whisky bottle and a bagpipe on his hand instead of a gun , an acting that sticks in the mind long after .
Support cast is frankly good such as David Brian , Don Galloway , Perry Lopez, Harry Carey Jr , Ben Johnson , Barbara Werle, and an ominus bit part, with special mention , for usual baddie Jack Elam .Colorful and evocative cinematography by William Clothier , adding genuine wide open spaces atmosphere .
He was an expert in all kinds of genres as Wartime such as Dirty dozen next mission, Sea wolves, On wings of eagles , Wild Geese, The Devil Brigade, Breakthrough and Western such as Chisum, Shenandoah, McLintock, The Blue and the Gray , The way west , Bandolero , Undefeated , Cahill United United States Marshal and this Rare Breed.
The motion picture will appral to James Stewart and Mauren O'Hara fans ..
James Stewart and Maureen O Hara.
James Stewart made this film at Universal with a very very beautiful Maureen O Hara as his leading lady reprising their teaming for 20th's Mr. Hobbs Takes A Vacation.
Andrew McLaglen who was part of the James Stewart-John Wayne fraternity of action movies directs well this story of cattle breeding.
I respect both James Stewart and Maureen O Hara for keeping their careers in high gear even in the troubled 60's.
With Maureen O Hara she outpaced many of her peers who retired due to lack of work, only Susan Hayward and Lana Turner were as active as the beautiful Irish Ms. O'Hara was in her steady stream of work as leading lady to John Wayne, Henry Fonda, James Stewart stalwart's of the American screen.
Always thought Don Golloway would be a star.Is this movie great?
And Maureen O Hara one of the great Beauties of the Screen!.
Average western that has a good story but bad screenplay,script,cinematography and directing.Stewart and O'Hara deliver very well as always but the bad production just weighs their performance down.Too bad for the subject matter of the story is very interesting and historically educational with a lot of action,drama and even comedic potentials.Only for big western fans and fans of the lead actors.......
Recently widowed, Martha Price {Maureen O'Hara} and her daughter Hilary {Juliet Mills} travel from England to Texas to sell their prized Hereford Bull, Vindicator.
But as the journey starts to become perilous, Sam finds himself strongly drawn to Martha, but he's also not the only one.The Rare Breed is a fictionalised account of how British bred cattle came to be part of the American beef industry.
McLaglen, "The Rare Breed" chronicles events in St. Louis and Texas in 1884-85 when an English woman (Maureen O'Hara) and her daughter (Juliet Mills) conscript a lanky cattleman (James Stewart) to try and get their hornless British bull to mate with the longhorns of Texas, but they have to deal with venal thugs (Jack Elam), a curmudgeon ranch mogul (Brian Keith) and the harshness of nature itself.The film meshes drama with lighthearted amusement in the manner of a screwball Disney family comedy, "fun" brawls reminiscent of John Wayne Westerns of that era, dead-serious sequences and romance.
I didn't feel this inconsistent tone marred the movie; after all, doesn't real life include all of these things?
Furthermore, the indoor sets substituting for outdoors are obvious and smack of old-fashioned movies & TV Western fare of the time period.About a third of the way in there's an exceptional stampede sequence that includes a heart-stopping on-set accident involving the wagon carrying Martha (O'Hara) and Hilary (Mills) ahead of the stampede.
In the same sequence a young man is forced to try to run UP the canyon wall in stark terror as the charging cattle threaten.THE FILM RUNS 97 minutes and was shot in Jamestown, Mecca, Coachella Valley, Mojave Desert and Universal Studios, California.
The movie has all the ingredients of a good western, cowboys, cattle, scenery, outsiders, bad guys, dreams, adventures, swindles, romance.
At the heart of the movie is a romance between Stewart and Maureen O'Hara as a British widow bringing a new breed of cattle to the West.
The heart of the problem is that it is hard to root for Jimmy Stewart's character--and you can't say THAT very often.
Maureen O'Hara's character drives the movie when she shows up, but she was a little hard to empathize with, too.
Fiesty Brit Maureen O'Hara and daughter Juliet Mills bring a royal bull for breeding to Old West America, where both ladies wind up with suitors.
The screenplay by Ric Hardman keeps all the characters spouting off and hopping mad, turning the movie into a western parody (culminating in a laughable blizzard sequence which McLaglen stages on a set--with the results looking far worse than the typical blue-screen effect).
O'Hara juggles the affections of both James Stewart (completely rote) and Brian Keith (hamming with abandon as a wild-eyed Scotsman).
Not only a good story but the acting was terrific in this western where a woman, played by Maureen O'Hara, comes to America with her daughter.
It was the introduction of Hereford cattle into the American West that was her husband's dream.
They enlisted help from Sam, played by James Stewart, who struggles to bring a bull to breed in Texas.
I don't think Jimmy Stewart really did himself any favours and we all know he was capable of so much more, but it wasn't his part that I found so painful but Brian Keith as Bowen the supposed Scotsman.
I enjoyed the movie "The Rare Breed" despite the fact that it was a tad silly at times.
I don't think that it was an attempt to make an extremely powerful, gut wrenching story, but rather some great actors doing a film that mixed some serious moments with a lot of fun.
Instead of knocking Mr. Stewart for doing this movie I would just as soon sit back and have a good time watching this "modern" western.
Great Western, lots of scenery.
Anything Jimmy Stewart, Maureen O'Hara, and Jack Elam is in, you can count on being a great movie.
It was a great movie, many interesting twists..
Without James Stewart, this flabby, far-too-long cattle yarn would be unwatchable.
Stewart made a few of these 'modern' westerns for Universal in the mid 60's ("Shenandoah" springs to mind) and they are consistently shallow and unrealistic.
Two English beauties, Martha and her daughter Hilary, travel out to the American West in 1884 to sell their prize hornless bull.
The film wants to be a comedy action movie, but fails in both departments.
Stewart plays Burnett, and manages to inject a bit of human interest into even this poorly-drawn character who has to utter some dreadful lines.
Martha is played by Maureen O'Hara.
The scenes in the Bowen ranch yard and the blizzard sequence are very obviously filmed in a studio.
The Rare Breed 	I saw this movie in the theatre when it came out in 1966 (I was 12 years old).
The closest I came to liking westerns was Cat Ballou, which may succeed more as a comic western than The Rare Breed does.
Still I liked, and still like, any-thing with James Stewart.
I think, however, that The Rare Breed succeeds as a romance.
In 1966 I might have seen the romance as `mushy stuff.' Although James Stewart did Westerns (`Classic' and `Modern') as well as Fantasy (It's A Wonderful Life) and biography (Charles Lindbergh, Glenn Miller) I think of him as a comic actor (The Philadelphia Story; Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation; Take Her, She's Mine).
For this reason, I have to view The Rare Breed as a Comedy as much as a Western.I can see the phoniness of the fist fights now and I might have seen them in 1966 as well.
McLaglen takes an original story by western writer Ric Hardman and set out to mix history with southwestern lore.
A young girl and her mother (Juliet Mills and Maureen O'Hara), travel from England to Texas with their prize Hereford Bull to Crossbreed a new species.
Along the way they meet Sam Burnett (James Stewart) who plans to deceive them.
The Bull is suppose to go to Alexander Bowen (Brian Keith) who has other plans.
The movie is set in the old west and there is plenty of spacious open range for all things western.
Such things as horses, Cowboys, fistfights, rough-an-tumble mayhem, free-for-all, wild gun play, rugged frontier life and free-range Long-horn Cattle.
A fifty year old Jimmy Stewart wrestling cattle?
James Stewart has solidified himself as one of the best actors in the history of film.
An overly long epic about cattle breeding is not what greats like Stewart should be used for.
Stewart finding a lost calf is a good moment, but that's solely his doing.
I love Maureen Ohara and I thought she did an excellent job as the mother in the movie.
I loved the Romance, and Drama in the movie.
Great movie for anyone to see even if you are a Maureen Ohara fan or not.
They should make more movies just as good as The Rare Breed to my opinion.
This is not a good movie.
Is and a man telling two women that are a mother and daughter and there cow is not good because it is a bull with no horns.
And the women that telling him that the cow is wonderful because it is a bull with no horns.
See a good western like A fist full of dollars..
McLaglen, who understood the John Ford mystique, "The Rare Breed" is a Western of consummate integrity which misses fire by not coming down firmly as either drama or comedy; it does however pass the time amiably enough Stewart again plays a cynical, hard-bitten man who has become disillusioned with human nature But his insight and understanding are well transmitted The title refers to a certain breed of cattle, and not to men, rare, courageous, or other-wise O'Hara is an Englishwoman who comes to America with her daughter, Juliet Mills, bringing a prize Hereford bull named Vindicator Her husband has died on the way, and she is delivering the bull to a cattle baron (Brian Keith) in Dodge City Her late husband has always declared that the Hereford could be successfully interbred with the indigenous American LonghornsOriginally Stewart had planned to kidnap the bull and hand it over to a rival dealer, but he falls under the spell of O'Hara's womanly integrity, and becomes her ally Soon a triangle is set up between Stewart, O'Hara and Keith, with predictable resultsThe dramatic elements are not totally neglected in the film The rivalry between the ranchers, the poignant situation of the young lovers, O'Hara's attempts to set right to the surroundings that she, a new widow, finds extraneous, are all set forth skillfully by McLaglen's directorial hand.
But, considering that it starred Jimmy Stewart and Maureen O'Hara, I really expected so much more!
In fact, if it hadn't been for the stars, I would have given the film a 4.Jimmy Stewart is a man who has been hired by Maureen and her daughter to help transport her prize stud bull out west to sell.
Oddly, Ms. O'Hara seems pretty willing to let Brian Keith (in a very broad portrayal) and later, Stewart to woo her.