3 Godfathers

3 Godfathers

★★★

This is a sweet Western about three desperados who come across a dying woman and promise to save her newborn baby. The outlaws seem like pretty decent guys, except for their habit of robbing banks, so we aren't ever worried about the child's fate as they immediately bend all their slim resources to getting the baby to civilization. That isn't easy because there's a posse on their trail.

I've been interested in this movie since seeing Tokyo Godfathers which is a family favorite. The idea of the Japanese director being so taken with this film that he created his own version (and an excellent one it is), almost boggles the mind. It certainly makes me take the movie more seriously than I might have otherwise.

The fact that John Ford shot this in Technicolor in 1948 shows how seriously he took it and how much pull he had with the studios at the time. That made it very expensive indeed.

Is it the best movie I've ever seen? No. But there was something about it that I can't quite shake so I thought I'd mention it to y'all.  It is worth keeping in mind since it'd make a good Christmas film to break the monotony of the usual candidates, as we often do with Tokyo Godfathers.