An enjoyable Batjac Wester with Randy Scott, directed by Bud Boetticher. The two of them turned out a series of minor gems and this is perhaps the best example.
Scott is his usual deeply tanned, taciturn, spoil-sport self. He strides rather than walks, matching his character's name. The plot has to do with his trying to recover some stolen Wells Fargo money. In the course of the robbery his wife was killed so he has plenty of reason to play the stoic. He's pretty amusing actually. He stands around grimly while people try to talk to him. It's like having a duel of wits with a piece of granite. I won't go into the rest of the plot.
John Larch is such a likable actor that even when his role is ambiguous, as it is here, it's sad to see him get bumped off, especially when he's shot to pieces from opposite directions.
Gail Russell is a little sad to watch too. A few years earlier she had been both sexy and vulnerable, etiolated, black-haired, with pale blue irises , slightly pained, as if suffering from a calamitous but not disfiguring disease. She seemed radiant with it. And maybe it was a disease after all, sometimes called "Jellenik's disease," named after the guy who tried to medicalize alcoholism. In any case, Russell hadn't that long to live.
John Ford had two big stunt men in his stock company who were named Chuck. I forget the last name of the other, but the one who appears here is Chuck Roberson. Chuck Roberson was known as "Good Chuck" because he didn't get drunk, gamble, or become vulgar. The other was known as "Bad Chuck." Roberson had become John Wayne's traditional Western stand in. When Roberson's little kid was visiting a shoot, he asked Wayne was kind of work Wayne did. Wayne replied that he did Roberson's close ups. Good Chuck retired to a ranch in Bakersfield and lived a reasonably content life, monarch of all he surveyed.
The outstanding performance, without qualification, is Lee Marvin's. What a GOOD BAD GUY he was! One of the best ever. He constantly plays with his six guns, jokingly kicks chairs out from under people, and when he's shot after some fatal words ("I don't 'spect there's any way to get that gold without going' over you") he twirls around balletically before falling to the dirt. He did a great twirl in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," and in, "The Killers", as well, although in at least the last he was helped considerably by the self-induced chemical paralysis of his psychomotor coordination.
What amazes me in these movies is how CLEAN all the men are. They can ride the range for a month and come out looking pressed and dapper in a way you wouldn't after one day behind the counter. At the end, Scott winds up wearing a matching ultra-violet blue outfit with a cowboy hat of the same color and a bright scarf as a contrasting accessory. I'm not sure I got these terms right but you know what I mean.
The movie is a lot of fun, and Lee Marvin shouldn't be missed. His jaw is always slack, his mouth half open. That pendulous lower lip, bespeaking calculation, contempt, and distrust.
Scott is his usual deeply tanned, taciturn, spoil-sport self. He strides rather than walks, matching his character's name. The plot has to do with his trying to recover some stolen Wells Fargo money. In the course of the robbery his wife was killed so he has plenty of reason to play the stoic. He's pretty amusing actually. He stands around grimly while people try to talk to him. It's like having a duel of wits with a piece of granite. I won't go into the rest of the plot.
John Larch is such a likable actor that even when his role is ambiguous, as it is here, it's sad to see him get bumped off, especially when he's shot to pieces from opposite directions.
Gail Russell is a little sad to watch too. A few years earlier she had been both sexy and vulnerable, etiolated, black-haired, with pale blue irises , slightly pained, as if suffering from a calamitous but not disfiguring disease. She seemed radiant with it. And maybe it was a disease after all, sometimes called "Jellenik's disease," named after the guy who tried to medicalize alcoholism. In any case, Russell hadn't that long to live.
John Ford had two big stunt men in his stock company who were named Chuck. I forget the last name of the other, but the one who appears here is Chuck Roberson. Chuck Roberson was known as "Good Chuck" because he didn't get drunk, gamble, or become vulgar. The other was known as "Bad Chuck." Roberson had become John Wayne's traditional Western stand in. When Roberson's little kid was visiting a shoot, he asked Wayne was kind of work Wayne did. Wayne replied that he did Roberson's close ups. Good Chuck retired to a ranch in Bakersfield and lived a reasonably content life, monarch of all he surveyed.
The outstanding performance, without qualification, is Lee Marvin's. What a GOOD BAD GUY he was! One of the best ever. He constantly plays with his six guns, jokingly kicks chairs out from under people, and when he's shot after some fatal words ("I don't 'spect there's any way to get that gold without going' over you") he twirls around balletically before falling to the dirt. He did a great twirl in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," and in, "The Killers", as well, although in at least the last he was helped considerably by the self-induced chemical paralysis of his psychomotor coordination.
What amazes me in these movies is how CLEAN all the men are. They can ride the range for a month and come out looking pressed and dapper in a way you wouldn't after one day behind the counter. At the end, Scott winds up wearing a matching ultra-violet blue outfit with a cowboy hat of the same color and a bright scarf as a contrasting accessory. I'm not sure I got these terms right but you know what I mean.
The movie is a lot of fun, and Lee Marvin shouldn't be missed. His jaw is always slack, his mouth half open. That pendulous lower lip, bespeaking calculation, contempt, and distrust.