cult film freak: ROBERT WAGNER IN THE OBSCURE GOLF PRO CURIO 'BANNING'

Robert Wagner and Mike Kellin from BANNING Year: 1967 Rating: ****

The extremely elusive and rare BANNING is a 1967 film about former golf pro Robert Wagner as the title character... coolly rolling into an exclusive Arizona golf course like an enigmatic rider from a spaghetti western...

Full of secrets and suave blackmailing that it takes half the movie to figure out, mostly through exposition from characters ranging from Guy Stockwell as the crooked son-in-law (married to Susan Clark) of super-rich Howard St. John, who practically owns the joint while Jill St. John is a rich fatale type with her hooks in Banning... but his own vulnerable heart's aimed at the golf course's seemingly chaste working-girl Anjanette Comer...

Robert Wagner and James Farentino in BANNING

Then there's Mike Kellin as a shady mobster, whose purpose isn't clear until the 11th hour high-stakes tournament, where Wagner — unlike many actors playing great golfers — can actually swing a club when not outsmarting those richer, luckier or else hungrier: like climber James Farentino who wants Banning's assistant pro gig or an underused Gene Hackman as the boozing has-been head pro...

Basically, everyone and everything leads to what Banning's been hiding while Wagner plays this particular handsome-guy role (that he could have sleepwalked through) with effective poise and narrowed determination, without being glib or breezy and, no matter how hard those surrounding pretty dames or jealous men try, BANNING... the person and the movie... never veers into cheap, manipulative melodrama.