BEFORE: Mary Steenburgen carries over from "Melvin and Howard", and I guess if I live by the linking, I die by the linking as well. This film's only been on the list for about a month - I paired it on a DVD with "Jeremiah Johnson" - but since my Nicholson chain's been played out already, the only place to really put it is between two other Steenburgen films, so that moved it way up in the ranks. On the other hand, films I'm anxious to watch, like "The Artist" and "12 Years a Slave" are now located near the far end of the list, thanks to that recent re-shuffling. Oh, it would be so simple if I could just allow myself to watch whatever I wanted, in any order - but then on days when I had no strong inkling, I wouldn't know what to do. Nope, the list remains in charge, there's a bigger plan here, even if I can't always see it.
THE PLOT: A horse thief is saved from the gallows when a woman needs a man to help her work her mine and marries him. The two begin to try to form a relationship based on necessity in which they have nothing in common.
AFTER: I'm tempted to point out that they don't make Westerns like this any more, except for the fact that they never made 'em like this one, umm, except for this one. Sure, every film is a product of its time, and authenticity is relative, but if you make a Western today, you'd probably try to make sure that the characters of the 1860's wouldn't know anything that they didn't know then, or have access to electricity or flush toilets or the like - but this is Jack Nicholson of the 1970's, with all the craziness that implies, transplanted back to the 1860's. Chronologically he's somewhere between "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "The Shining" - I suppose his character falls somewhere between those two performances as well. (Sure, he was in at least one other Western, "The Missouri Breaks", but I'm sticking with my first impression.)
His character, Henry Moon, makes the mistake of stealing horses in the town of Convenient Plot Device, Texas, where any woman can save a man from being hanged if she agrees to marry him and thus reform him (theoretically) - supposedly this referendum was passed while most of the menfolk were off fighting in the Civil War, and women needed men to help with the farming. The first woman who chooses him is an elderly one, and after removing his blindfold, I half expected Jack's character to request that the noose be put BACK around his neck.
But he ends up with a younger woman who needs help with her gold mine, or should I say "lack of gold" mine - it's not really a gold mine until you find some. Her interests are not romantic, but since he's a man, his are. She's got to strike it rich before the railroad comes and seizes her land - making this only the twentieth or so Western I've seen where the railroad buying up land is a key plot point. ("Go West", both "Lone Ranger" films, etc. etc.) I mean, I get that the steam train was a big deal back then, but there must have been some other shit going on too, right?
A more cynical person might take issue with this film's depiction of marriage as a business deal, but an even more cynical person might agree that all marriages are business deals, at the end of the day. Like Paul Simon sang, "Negotiations and love songs are often mistaken for one and the same." I also appreciated the double meaning of the title, since Henry keeps planning to go south to Mexico, and the term also applies to his plans always tending to fall apart.
Also starring Jack Nicholson (last seen in "Something's Gotta Give"), Christopher Lloyd (last heard in "Anastasia"), John Belushi (last seen in "Neighbors"), Richard Bradford (last seen in "The Chase"), Veronica Cartwright (last seen in "The Birds"), Danny DeVito (last seen in "Anything Else"), Tracey Walter, Ed Begley, Jr. (last seen in "Whatever Works").
RATING: 4 out of 10 apricots
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