Tetrady not as good as all the hype

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

georgewilliamnoble I saw this movie on its first release way back when at a long gone local cinema. 53 years on, it seems somewhat more romanticised, and just a little bit pretentious than way back then. None the less this is a rollicking good cowboy yarn. And nobody sounds more granite strong and with total conviction of the american ideal, than the big man himself John Wayne, boy could he deliver a manly speech. The plot well there is one with bad guy's but oh how that score from Elmer Bernstein soars above the whole movie rousing action-full and stirring! as the movie blasts away with shoot out's a plenty and good old Johnny Cash gruff's out a catchy theme song for good measure - A those good old cowboy movie from days of yore! - and no revisionism here!

joepolach It tries everything to win the viewer over, all of the typical western tactics and tropes, but a western with a vapid story line, basic acting, and too many improbable and poorly edited shoot 'em up moments cannot be rescued, no matter how many whiskeys and cowboy antics are thrown in, even with a star-studded cast.

grantss A good, but flawed, western. Had the makings of a great movie: a family relationship story and a mystery, all set against a Wild West backdrop. The relationship story had its moments, especially when learning of all that the mother had done for her sons, but was never concluded. As soon as the action started, that side of the story disappeared.The mystery side had more legs, but the suspense is not sustained and the cat gets let out of the bag far too early.With both the relationship-drama and the mystery-drama drama disappearing, it becomes a cowboy movie. Not a bad one, but not a great one either. Some plot holes and contrivances. This may seem sacrilegious: but John Wayne is miscast in his role. He is too old and too out of shape for the part. The part needed an actor in his late-40s at most (well, who at least looked mid- 40s...). John Wayne was 58 at the time and looked it.Dean Martin brings his showbiz charisma to his character and it works well. Good support from Earl Holliman, Michael Anderson Jr, Martha Hyer, James Gregory and George Kennedy. Good work from Dennis Hopper in one of his first cinematic roles. The hyper-active, constantly-nervous character seemed made for him.

virek213 A lot can be said about what John Wayne was becoming in the 1960s: old-fashioned; rampant, unquestioning patriot; militant right-winger, etc., etc. But there was something else that he still was: a Hollywood presence like few others before, and even fewer since. He was also undergoing a stark change in his life, one that can be seen to some extent in the film he made early in 1965 with old friend Henry Hathaway (NORTH TO ALASKA) in the director's seat—namely THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER.Wayne, Dean Martin (reuniting with The Duke from RIO BRAVO), and relative greenhorns Earl Holliman and Michael Anderson Jr. are four brothers who have returned to their former hometown of Clearwater, Texas to pay their respects to their mother Katie Elder, only to find that their family's ranch has been bought off under mighty peculiar circumstances, namely (and supposedly) a card game that their father lost, and was shot and killed for. The four brothers' reputations as overgrown juvenile reprobates (even Wayne), however, precede them; nobody's talking, not even the local sheriff (Paul Fix, of "Rifleman" and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD fame); and Fix's deputy (Jeremy Slate) has a lot against them. Then the four have it out with the man (James Gregory, who had played the manipulated politician in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE) who bought their family's ranch out in that suspicious way that he has, along with a beefy gunslinger (George Kennedy), and Gregory's vicious but none-too-sharp kid (Dennis Hopper).What was notable about KATIE ELDER was that it was the first film Wayne had done after having had one of his lungs removed (in late 1964) because of all the smoking and boozing he had done throughout his life. This required him to carry an oxygen tank with him on the set; and he had to use it a lot since he not only did a fair amount of his own stunts, but also because much of KATIE ELDER was filmed in the rarefied high-altitude air of Durango, Mexico. It didn't seem to affect his performance adversely, though; he was still doing his particular thing, being The Duke as he would be for practically every Western he did from this point forward (even in his Oscar-winning role as Rooster Cogburn in TRUE GRIT in 1969). He also was so taken with the scenery in Durango (and the cheap Mexican labor there) that a lot of the Westerns he made between this one and 1973's THE TRAIN ROBBERRS would be made in that locale.Even with Wayne's stoic presence here, he doesn't overshadow his co-stars too much. Martin, looking fairly sober, does his turn as the card-shark brother; and Gregory, Kennedy, and Hopper make for a trio of nasty villains. There is also the reassuring presence of Strother Martin in one of his many character roles; the great cinematography of Lucien Ballard; and a rousing score by Elmer Bernstein, with the title song done by the legendary Man In Black himself, Johnny Cash.While both the film and its Big Star may seem quite dated in a lot of ways, as an old-fashioned, traditional Western opus, THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER delivers the goods in ways that you would expect any John Wayne film, especially one directed by Hathaway, to do. No one will mistake it for the more radical films that would soon alter the Western (THE WILD BUNCH; ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST; BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID); but for what it is and what it intends to do, one could do far, far worse.