In six months, the population of Cromwell, Oklahoma, has climbed from 500 to 10,000. Boom times have come to the oil-rich town. So has a new breed of criminal. You Know My Name is the fact-based story of Bill Tilghman, a lawman and former partner of Wyatt Earp confronted by an emerging era when outlaws run whiskey instead of cattle and are likely to tote a tommy gun as carry a six-gun. An ideally cast Sam Elliott plays Tilghman, whose life takes on a newfangled wrinkle of its own. Tilghman makes a moving picture of his Old West exploits; and the success of that silent film, The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws, spreads his reputation like a brushfire. But that reputation may mean nothing to a thug (Arliss Howard) who hides behind a badge.
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Reviews
That was an excellent one.
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
It's too bad that Sam Elliott didn't come along 20 or 30 years earlier to films. If he had he would never lack for work as a cowboy hero. He's not done too bad in the present day in any event. In You Know My Name he plays one of the west's last genuine heroes from the old days in a new era with little regard for law enforcement which proves to be his undoing.Bill Tilghman, one of the great frontier marshals of the old west took his last job in law enforcement in Cromwell, Oklahoma in 1924. It was an oil boom town, a wide open town with roughneck money fueling the economy the way the trail hands did back in Tilghman's prime. Now however big city gangsters and their hirelings are running things and even though Prohibition is in the Constitution, that doesn't seem to matter to a thirsty public. It's a world of rumbleseats in flivvers, tommy guns, and bobbed hair on women, Tilghman is out of his time.He's also got a jurisdictional dispute with Prohibition Federal agent Arliss Howard playing the corrupt T-Man, Wiley Lynn. For all the agents like Eliot Ness, there were more like Wiley Lynn, getting rich on bribes enabling people to flout an unpopular law.Elliott gives one of his best performances as Bill Tilghman. A weary man who could sit back on his laurels and they were considerable, at the age of 70, yes 70, he goes back to doing the work of a younger man because the younger man are corrupt in a corrupt age. This part was one where Sam Elliott's premature gray hair stood him in good stead.What you see in You Know My Name is the truth, exactly what happened to Tilghman. I would commend people to read up on Tilghman and find out that this last of the frontier marshals had one glorious career that came to a sad end. This is a wonderful film about a western hero who literally did die with his boots on.
Any western that stars Sam Elliott is usually a good one. Few people have ever looked and sounded more like a cowboy than Sam. Also, most westerns feature beautiful landscapes and overall photography, and this film is no exception. Being made-for-TV, it could have been made on-the-cheap but it wasn't. I am not a fan of Ted Turner but his TNT westerns look beautiful, all of them.Elliott plays a lower-key role than usual, being an appealing sort as a loving father and husband and a good-guy marshal. This western is a bit different in that the time period is the early 1900s with automobiles and such dotting the landscape.There is not a lot of action in here and not an especially happy ending, either, but it's a good western that worth you while to check out.
This movie definitely could have been better. First, you've got a great story of a great man to the people and law of Cromwell. Second, without a doubt, you've got Sam Elliot! After Clint Eastwood, nobody took the role of a great western actor...until Sam Elliot.
Maybe it was the fact that it was a western set at the start of the modern time period, but something about this movie was lacking. Sam Elliot as Tiglman is excellent and Carolyn McCormick as his wife was a nice bit of casting. However, Arliss Howard as the corrupt federal agent was so over the top you would think you were supposed to be watching a present day drug film. Elliot should be acknowledged as a master of the western movie genre, if he hasn't been already. However, this movie didn't have enough of the "western" qualities for me. I'll sit back and watch Conagher again to see Elliot in top form with a great "western" storyline.