Warner Bros. Pictures
Harrison Ford and Gene Wilder star as a taciturn gunslinger and a clueless immigrant rabbi traveling across the Wild West in director Robert Aldrich’s comical adventure The Frisco Kid. Wilder plays Avram Belinski, who travels from his rabbinical school in Philadelphia to Gold Rush-era San Francisco, believing his destination to be only a short walk. Along the way he befriends bank robber Tommy Lillard (Ford). Now, as this mismatched pair crosses the frontier, the Old West will never be the same.
REVIEW
A rabbi and a gunslinger walk into a bar.
Want to hear the punchline? You’ll have to watch 1979’s The Frisco Kid, recently released on Blu-ray from Warner Archive.
Gene Wilder is the rabbi, Avram Belinski. A few years removed from the most beloved western comedy of all time, Blazing Saddles, Wilder is back to do what he does better than most: a fish out of water story. Avram graduated at the very bottom of his class from the yeshiva in Poland and by all accounts, he’s a bit of a schmo. He’s sent to America, where he must travel from Philadelphia to San Francisco to deliver a Torah scroll. This, of course, means traveling through the outlawed Wild West.
‘One day God said, ‘Let there be prey,’ and he created pigeons, rabbits, lambs, and Gene Wilder’, joked frequent collaborator Mel Brooks.
He’s robbed immediately upon his arrival. There’s no way that his trip will go well.
Enter the gunslinger, Tommy Lillard, played by Harrison Ford. Despite playing an intergalactic cowboy two years prior in Star Wars, Ford couldn’t quite get his footing in Hollywood. In The Frisco Kid, he leans back on some of those Han Solo tendencies, playing a really fun son-of-a.
That is to say that his outlaw feels pity for Wilder’s klutz. He befriends him and offers to chaperon him to California.
The rest of the film is the punchline to that joke.
It’s fairly episodic from that point on. They encounter some cowboys, some Native Indians, some locals — the typical Western stuff. Genre comedies are always best when they get the genre part right before the comedy part, and this movie does.
Easily the best segment is when they rob a bank on a Thursday, but can’t run away from the chasing posse on a Saturday … because it’s Shabbat — a day of rest. Rabbi Belinski implores that they rest and do not ride. Sure, Shabbat can be broken if your life is in danger, but he either doesn’t know that or doesn’t care, and I can’t tell which is funnier.
Wilder is, of course, always funny. He brings an earnestness to this part that only really he can bring. The comedy is careful to never come from the religion, but instead his bumbling character. Even then, his Rabbi is kind and thoughtful — he’s just a little out of his league on this cross-country journey, considering he can’t tell the difference between a Jew and a Mennonite.
His buddy-cop pairing with Ford works well. It’s a shocker to absolutely no one that Ford can play the lovable rogue with a side-eye and a smirk better than anyone as it’s what he’s best known for, and this B-side of his filmography is no different. The part was originally to be played by John Wayne (‘Every time the director, Robert Aldrich, looked at me, he was thinking about how unhappy he was that he didn’t have John Wayne, instead’, is an anecdote he’s shared on multiple occasions) but I think that having a 70-plus-year-old Wayne would have completely changed the dynamic. Ford is young, full of energy, looking for direction in life (better direction than just ‘west’) and perhaps even some spiritual guidance. Both characters truly need each other to get to the end credits.
Sure, maybe a few jokes won’t land. But the movie has more than enough heart. It’s been long awaited on Blu-ray by all kinds of fans: Western fans, comedy fans, Gene Wilder fans, Robert Aldrich fans, and the list goes on. This disc is sure to appease them all.
VIDEO
Warner Bros. Pictures
Not much is known about the 1080p transfer on the disc, but it looks nice regardless. Westerns have muted colors, of course, and this film is no different with its brown and greys and maroons, but they all look nice. The DVD release from years ago is quite clunky, so this is quite the upgrade.
AUDIO
Most of the film takes place outside, but the disc’s dialogue never feels shouty or echoey. It all sounds smooth and clear, without any notable bruises or bumps. The terrain and landscape is given just enough life to make it feel lived-in, but not too overpowering. This DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio is all you can hope for.
SPECIAL FEATURES
The only feature is a trailer for the film.
OVERVIEW
Those that have waited for this disc for quite some time will be happy with its presentation, despite the bare-bones release. Those who haven’t seen it yet will discover that little nugget of gold that all cowboys want to find.
Warner Archive generously provided Hotchka with the Blu-ray for reviewing purposes.
The Frisco Kid has a running time of 1 hour 59 minutes and is rated PG.
Warner Bros. Pictures
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