Review of The Tin Star

Unlike the Stewart/Mann Westerns, this one doesn't seem to have much of a critical fan base. I can understand why, although it's not bad at all.

Here's what I liked:

• Henry Fonda makes a super cowboy. A shame he didn't make more Westerns. A juicy part here as a retired, all-knowing "super-sheriff" who has turned bitter bounty hunter after losing a wife and child in the line of duty. (Randolph Scott played a very similar character in Budd Boetticher's "Ride Lonesome" a couple of years later. Lee Van Cleef also played the heavy in that film).

• Excellent acting by the always reliable John McEntire, once again exhibiting his remarkable range by playing a man 25 years older than himself - and nailing it.

• Nice job by Neville Brand as an Indian hating heavy. Interesting that I had just watched Brand play an Indian character in a comic relief buddy role with John Wayne in "Cahill, U.S. Marshall".

• Morg's romantic interest isn't gratuitous. Women and son are key to the theme of Morg's redemption from "dead only" bounty hunter/loner to family man, with a real job and responsibility.

• Very effective scene where the dead body of Doc McCord is carried into the middle of his 75th birthday celebration by his buggy. This is Anthony Mann at his macabre best.

Here's what kept the movie from being better:

• The plot dragged. I got bored watching this. Dual climaxes of shootout with McGaffeys and confrontation with Bogardus was awkward.

• Parts of the plot seemed blatantly derivative from a couple of very successful movies released a few years before this i.e. Morg's relationship with the little boy ("Shane") and the sheriff being left to fend for himself by the town elders ("High Noon").

• Theme of virtues of "dead or alive" law enforcement didn't interest me and didn't seem relevant to anything.

• Yet another uncomfortable age issue in romantic subplot. Fonda's over 20 years older than his female costar and looks every year of it.

• As usual in Mann's movies, minimal comic relief.

• Black and white "town" Western, mostly filmed in the Burbank back lot with occasional field trips to San Fernando valley. At least everybody got to sleep in their own bed every night.

• Anthony Perkins seems miscast and looks very out of place in the Old West. His character was annoying and implausibly naive.

• Lee Van Cleef underused again. Thank you for coming along, Sergio Leone!

• Civil rights racism theme seems tacked on.

• A myriad of typical Anthony Mann plot holes, including:

How does a single mom invite a complete stranger into her house to share a bedroom with her young son? She knows nothing about Morg when he rides up, except that he's followed her son home. Is she comforted later when she finds out he's considered a vicious bounty hunter? I know she's an outcast in the town too, but she seems a very normal protective mother.

Why do the McGaffey brothers abandon their ranch and hide in the canyon? They couldn't have known Doc's journal would incriminate them, or they would have destroyed it. Without the journal there is no reason anyone would suspect them of killing him.

Assuming that for some unexplained reason they found out the posse was coming for them, what are they accomplishing hiding up in a cave anyway? How long can they last up there? Maybe they have food, but what about water? One brother was just seriously wounded.

Morg has been a smart guy from the beginning, always playing the odds right. Yet he decides to go up against two guys with rifles who have the high ground and know he's coming.

The fact that he vanquishes the dug in McGaffeys with ease - even takes them alive - is almost as implausible as when James Stewart takes out Robert Ryan in the climax of "The Naked Spur".

How could Anthony Perkins be so stupid to think the McCaffeys won't shoot him if he tries to walk up and arrest them. They're guilty! They're going to hang! Why possible motive could they have to turn themselves in?

I could go on, but watching this guy's movies exhausts me.