This movie obviously wasn't made to break any box office records. It's just a sweet little comedy with great characters that deserves more recognition.

Maybe the biggest problem with "Bronco Billy" is that it tries to have too much story. I wouldn't had mind seeing the movie focusing on Clint and his gang alone, plenty of great characters for that! Instead we now have the movie mainly focusing on the love story.

This isn't really a comedy with "haha" moments. It more is a movie with a warm and fun feeling, which is mainly thanks to the great characters. I especially enjoyed Scatman Crothers in his role but also Clint Eastwood did a good job as a character that basically wanted to be like the western characters Eastwood previously played before.

Fun comedy by Eastwood! Give it a shot, you might end up liking it.

7/10

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I had assumed, incorrectly, that this film was some sort of biography about the old silent movie cowboy star, Bronco Billy Anderson. Well, despite the title, it is not. Instead, Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) is a modern fictional character--much like Buffalo Bill Cody with his wild west show, but on a much, much, much, much smaller scale. In fact, Bronco Billy's show is pathetically small and not the least bit impressive. And, as far as Billy is concerned, he is an ex-show salesman from New Jersey--hardly the western star you'd expect him to be. But Billy WANTS to be the prototypical western hero and often walks and talks like Roy Rogers and is a genuinely nice person.

Into this poor but nice outfit comes a very spoiled and disagreeable young heiress (Sondra Locke). After treating her brand-new husband like dirt, he takes off--and with all their possessions. As she's in the middle of nowhere, she is forced, despite her haughty ways, to take up with Bronco Billy's show--and a long series of bad luck follows. In addition, Locke's nasty ways alienate her from practically everyone. While her clichéd transformation to a nice person is totally predictable and not one bit convincing, the film, inexplicably, is fun and worth seeing--mostly because it is so quirky and fun. For my wife and myself, we stayed up very late watching this one because there was this strange watchability to the film--possibly because the characters were just so darn strange...but likable. Worth seeing...but I am not 100% sure why!

By the way, there did seem to be a hole in the film--but perhaps the Encore Channel somehow cut a piece from the movie. When Eastwood's character is being challenged by the nasty Sheriff, the scene suddenly ends. What happened here?! Did Bronco Billy kill the Sheriff, did angels divinely intervene or what?!

Clint Eastwood labels Bronco Billy as one of his favorite films so who am I to tell him different. It is a fun and quirky movie, kind of like You Can't Take It With You. He certainly has gathered together a collection of people similar to Grandpa Vanderhoff's friends and family.

Playing the title role Eastwood is the owner and star of a wild west show Eastwood has in his employ a collection of characters who are uniquely loyal to him. To which he adds Sondra Locke who is one of those rich heiresses which saturated films in the Thirties.

Bronco Billy's outfit is hardly like Buffalo Bill Cody's show nor even like the one John Wayne was the impresario of in Circus World. It's just scraping by, it's people not being paid for weeks on end. But none of them will leave him.

Locke's been left flat by her husband and she's hired by Eastwood not knowing who she is as essentially a come-on. She's attractive enough to be one. Locke learns soon enough that the people in the show are there to escape their own reality and step into the mythology of the wild west. Eastwood himself has created Bronco Billy, his own real life was nothing to brag about. He feels to some degree that people can be what they want and he gives those who are with him a chance to do just that.

Clint Eastwood in his westerns certainly created enough mythology of the old west steps back a bit from those characters in Bronco Billy. It's a curiously old fashioned film though, the kind I wish were still made.

What I wouldn't give to work in Bronco Billy's show.