The Quick and the Dead

Why is it that the man who begs for mercy never gives it?

The Quick and the Dead is directed by Robert Day and written by Louis L'Amour (novel) and James Lee Barrett (teleplay). It stars Sam Elliott, Tom Conti, Kate Capshaw, Kenny Morrison, Matt Clark and Patrick Kilpatrick. Music is by Steve Dorff and cinematography is by Dick Bush.

In 1876 Wyoming, Duncan (Conti) and Suzanna McKaskel (Capshaw) are taking their son and belongings to start a new life out West. But driving through a barely populated tin-pot town, they find themselves beset by a bunch of outlaws run by Doc Shabitt (Clark). Luckily, help may be at hand in the form of tough no nonsense frontiersman Con Vallian (Elliott)?, that is if matters of the heart and secrets of ...

Hackneyed plot with mature insights and surprises

RELEASED IN 1987 and directed by Robert Day, "The Quick and the Dead" is a made-for-HBO Western starring Sam Elliott as Con Vallian, a mysterious stranger who helps a family heading West in their conflict with a group of ne'er-do-wells. Vallian's desire is piqued by the wife (Kate Capshaw), is that interest mutual? Will the family make it to the Bighorn Mountains alive-and-well or will violence and adultery destroy them?

If you don't remember Kate Capshaw, she was the blonde in 1984's "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and later married director Steven Spielberg.

I was impressed with this little-known Western. Although made for cable, it's based on a Louis L'Armour book an...