MovieChat Forums > Big Jake (1971) Discussion > Gunmen trailing the money

Gunmen trailing the money

posted 17 years ago by bullit2513
2 replies | jump to latest

So how many men are actually following Jake, Sam, James, and Michael for the money? Sam mentions four or five, but here's what I found.

1. Roy Jenson in the bathhouse, and the man he's with killed by Sam earlier. There's two.

2. The three in the hotel. Roy Jenson is guarding Jake so these three can sneak in. Okay, there's five all together.

So are the two bullies in the saloon who push James too far with this bunch, or are they just looking for a fight? With the timing of it, I wasn't sure since they start to push him as the others make a movie for the money. So bullies or fellow henchmen? I know it's minor overall for the movie, but I've always been curious.

"Congratulations, Major. It appears that at last you have found yourself a real war." Ben Tyreen

[–] bari2525 17 years ago

Hey bullit -

It's a weird coincidence, but I was watching Big Jake up until about 3 minutes ago. When James (Pat Wayne) is challenged by "Breed" (Glen Corbett) right at the end, Corbett says - "I hear you killed two good men in a fair fight," to which Pat says - "No...three," then shoots him dead.

The two bullies in the bar were part of the Roy Jenson crew. In addition, if you look closely at the two men on the stairs in the hotel, you can clearly see that one of them is the same actor that played Trooper! Sometimes the same actors were used to cut costs, and they collected pay for acting (high SAG scale), and doing stunts (lower SAG scale).

The problem was, the editor of the film didn't always pay close enough attention, and you can see the "double-up!"

I hope this helped.

Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway. John Wayne

[–] joegerardi-1 12 years ago

Sometimes the same actors were used to cut costs, and they collected pay for acting (high SAG scale), and doing stunts (lower SAG scale).

Quite true. Chuck Roberson was John Wayne's stunt double for nigh on to 20 years, often had small acting parts in the film, and did various stunt work as well. in fact, no one's really sure how many times - once the film was edited together - that Roberson shot and killed himself as various different characters!

..Joe