As a kid I saw Fred MacMurray in a bunch of films like "The Absent Minded Professor", "The Shaggy Dog" and of course his TV series "My Three Sons". So when I catch him in a Western every now and then it just seems hard to picture him as some rugged plainsman shooting it out with villains in the Old West. Yet he generally acquits himself reasonably well as he does here, a testament to his range as an actor in a role obviously against stereotype. Speaking of which, MacMurray offers up one of the better barroom brawls you'll see in a Fifties Western, going up against Edmon Ryan portraying defense attorney Selby. Slick move by the lawyer with the quick sucker punch, just as I expected.
The story however, is another story. I'm not thoroughly convinced (especially after having seen a few hundred Westerns), that the good people of Springdale would have been so fickle as to turn on their newly appointed Marshal Cutler (MacMurray) for actually doing his job. Reasonable doubt never held much sway in films involving pioneer justice, and the idea that a slick lawyer might have changed a few opinions wasn't enough to save Eddie Campbell's (Robert Vaughn) hide here either. The added element of the marshal's daughter (Joan Blackman) having a thing for the bad guy was an interesting concept here as well, but it's not like it hadn't been done before.
There was a puzzling element in the script for me, considering how the writers were seemingly making the liberal case against capital punishment. The idea of a fence around the gallows was deemed necessary to prevent gawkers, as public execution was coming to be seen as cruel and unusual punishment. Yet nothing prevented Campbell from watching the carpenters build the scaffold that he was going to die on - how cruel was that? I just didn't get it.
Before this was over, you just knew that somehow, Cutler and his daughter would have to arrive at some reconciliation over her relationship with the young outlaw. That's done with Eddie's jailbreak setting up the finale, and I just knew I would groan if Eddie wound up accidentally hanging himself as he climbed up the gallows during the shootout between his gang and the town folk. That actually happened in some B Western I can't remember the title of right now, but when I do I'll get back to you on it. You have to wonder sometimes how far a picture will go to stretch credibility. Here they only stretched it a little bit.
Addendum***9-22-2016*** OK, I found the title I was referencing in the last paragraph in which an outlaw inadvertently falls into a noose and hangs himself. It was the 1968 spaghetti Western "This Man Can't Die' starring Guy Madison. You can look it up on IMDb as "Long Days of Hate" or by it's Italian title, "I lunghi giorni dell'odio".
The story however, is another story. I'm not thoroughly convinced (especially after having seen a few hundred Westerns), that the good people of Springdale would have been so fickle as to turn on their newly appointed Marshal Cutler (MacMurray) for actually doing his job. Reasonable doubt never held much sway in films involving pioneer justice, and the idea that a slick lawyer might have changed a few opinions wasn't enough to save Eddie Campbell's (Robert Vaughn) hide here either. The added element of the marshal's daughter (Joan Blackman) having a thing for the bad guy was an interesting concept here as well, but it's not like it hadn't been done before.
There was a puzzling element in the script for me, considering how the writers were seemingly making the liberal case against capital punishment. The idea of a fence around the gallows was deemed necessary to prevent gawkers, as public execution was coming to be seen as cruel and unusual punishment. Yet nothing prevented Campbell from watching the carpenters build the scaffold that he was going to die on - how cruel was that? I just didn't get it.
Before this was over, you just knew that somehow, Cutler and his daughter would have to arrive at some reconciliation over her relationship with the young outlaw. That's done with Eddie's jailbreak setting up the finale, and I just knew I would groan if Eddie wound up accidentally hanging himself as he climbed up the gallows during the shootout between his gang and the town folk. That actually happened in some B Western I can't remember the title of right now, but when I do I'll get back to you on it. You have to wonder sometimes how far a picture will go to stretch credibility. Here they only stretched it a little bit.
Addendum***9-22-2016*** OK, I found the title I was referencing in the last paragraph in which an outlaw inadvertently falls into a noose and hangs himself. It was the 1968 spaghetti Western "This Man Can't Die' starring Guy Madison. You can look it up on IMDb as "Long Days of Hate" or by it's Italian title, "I lunghi giorni dell'odio".