Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A non-review by Prof. Popinjay

An elderly John Wayne plays an elderly cattle rustler who can’t find a trustworthy crew of semi-elderly men to help him move a huge number of cattle a great distance to market. Rather than hire the local band of lying no-good semi-elderly misfits, elderly Wayne opts to train a group of fatherless barely-old enough non-elderly super-eager kids to take up rope and saddle. The previously mentioned semi-elderly do-badders don’t take kindly to this movement and see fit to disrupt elderly Wayne’s operation all along the way.

Normally a plot like this would denote a wacky feel-good movie and while there are moments of lightheartedness, this film is dreadful serious but in a good way.

Man, there are a lot of letters in the word “lightheartedness”.

Anyway, I was captivated by this film from start to finish and, lady, did it ever finish. Dang good movie. Don’t let the lackluster title fool you. It’s ironic. Because they actually are boys. They’re not elderly.