Producer A.C. Lyles made a spate of westerns in the mid-'60s that employed a lot of veteran actors who were, frankly, too old to get work anywhere else. While it was nice of him to give them jobs, the least he could have done was to not embarrass them, and I'm afraid that's what most of these movies do, especially this one. It's about a marshal hired to clean up a town, and the troubles he has and some long-ago secrets he's afraid might come out. Dana Andrews, like pretty much everyone else in this picture, is too old for the part; he was almost 60 when he made this, and age and a lifetime of drinking problems (which he has freely admitted to) had taken a toll on his physical appearance. He's just not even remotely believable as the kind of fast gun you'd hire to clean up your town. Although the cast is filled with old veterans, only a few of them, notably Lyle Bettger, can muster up the energy to turn in good performances. It's not their fault, of course, and the hack script and limp direction by Lesley Selander (who himself was 65 years old by then and had been making B westerns for more than 30 years) doesn't help either. The film has the look of someone who got some old friends together and said, "Let's make a western." While that may be a nice gesture, it doesn't make for a good movie. This one isn't. Avoid it.
Review of Town Tamer
