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You Know My Name
Our Price: $14.95
VHS Tape - 16 May, 2000
Turner Home Video
NR (Not Rated)
Availability: Special Order
Director: John Kent Harrison
Number of Media: 1
Features: - Color
- Closed-captioned
- NTSC
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| VHS Tape Description Cromwell, Oklahoma, 1924: an oil boomtown full of saloons, cathouses, mud-and-crude-oil streets, bootleg whisky, and gun-toting roughnecks. Technology had overpassed the Old West, in the form of Model T's and oil rigs, but the mentality had stayed much the same. Add to that a population that's a bit tweaky from a combination of cocaine and morphine that had been going around, and you have a recipe for trouble. Enter Marshall Bill Tilghman, a contemporary of Wyatt Earp. Tilghman had made a silent film, The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws, and on the strength of his reputation had been called into service as chief of police in the hopes of restoring order to a lawless community. In this fact-based story, Sam Elliott plays Tilghman, a larger-than-life character who was one of the last of a dying era. Many Prohibition agents became renegades in the '20s; Tilghman's nemesis was Wiley (Arliss Howard), a rogue agent strung out on drugs and dealing in bootleg liquor himself. Howard's performance is as overwrought as Elliott's is restrained; together the two offset each other well. The flinty Elliott brings a measure of warmth to his role, especially in his relationship to his wife and kids; he's perfectly cast as the man on the cusp of a new age. As a modern-era Western, You Know My Name rises well above its made-for-cable roots to stand as a good character study and action picture. --Jerry Renshaw |
| Reviews from Customers
The Greatest of Us All This movie depicts the final days of my distant relative, Bill Tilghman. Tilghman enforced the law from the 1880's, as Marshal of Dodge City through the Indian Territory days in Oklahoma to statehood and Roaring '20s gangsters.
At 70, he was about the only man left alive who had tamed a wild cowtown. The Governor called on him to bring law and order to Cromwell, the oiltown known as "the meanest town in Oklahoma." He did it, though did not live to see his work totally completed.
Sam Elliott does a wonderful job of portraying this lawman who was better known in his day than the Wyatt Earps and such we are familiar with today. While a few cinematic prerogatives were taken, William Kent Harrison stayed pretty close to history and clearly did a lot of research. He beautifully depicts the wonderment of an old West lawman coping with gangsters in T-model Fords and ignoring the ethics that characterized even such desperadoes as Bill Doolin in the 1890's.
Particularly interesting were the vignettes of Tilghman's 1915 movie, "The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws," which he and many of the people who were really there starred in.
In the early 1900's, famed lawman Bat Masterson was asked about the old lawmen of the West. Without hesitation, he said "Tilghman was the greatest of us all."
Very Inspirational I loved the portrayal of a tough honest lawman who also showed a deep understanding of human nature. He was also a very warm family man. The way he handled the young man who wanted to become his assistant and how he became a role model for him while he was alive is interesting. I like certain westerns and this was a good one. I think Sam Elliott should have been aged a little more...it was too obvious that a young man was wearing props to make him look much older. I recommend this feel-good movie for a general audience.
One of the Great Modern Westerns Sam Elliot is without a doubt the best modern western actor today. As with all his movies, he gives a stunning performance. While filled with a few historical flaws, it shows the general theme of Bill Tilghmans life. I admit that it would have been more interesting if they showed his earlier life and involvment with the likes of the Doolin gang. Some may say that is lacks a good plot, but the movie is a true story. |
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