Copyright 1957 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at the Palace (supporting the usual vaudeville bill): 19 July 1957. U.S. release: August 1957. U.K. release: 15 December 1957. Australian release: 18 July 1957. 7,981 feet. 88 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Well acted and directed, this western deals with a rover (Granger) who returns home to find his son (Rowland, the real-life son of the director) grown up and embittered. Needless to say, thanks to the encroachments of a wicked cattleman against whom our rover eventually proves his mettle, dad eventually wins his son around. There is plenty of riding and shooting and the photography is equally exciting. — Adapted from Picture Show.
NOTES: Steve Rowland had a modest career. I was told he debuted in "The Student Prince", but I've not checked this information. Other films I have for him are 'Wild Youth' (1961), 'The Thin Red Line' (1964), "Battle of the Bulge" (1965), his father's 'Gunfighters of Casa Grande" (1965), and "Hallucination Generation" (1966).
COMMENT: Some wag of a colorful showman once described DeLuxe as "DeLousy". I wonder what epithet he came up with for "Metrocolor" — Eastman Color processed by M-G-M's laboratory. If "Gun Glory" is a fair sample of the lab's proficiency, you'd imagine the critics having a field day — if most of them weren't half blind. (Did I ever tell you about a certain city's two leading critics, one who couldn't see very clearly any further than three feet — even with her spectacles on — and the other who had to wear dark glasses at film screenings because the light hurt his eyes).
Actually, the exteriors come across with a fair degree of impact, but the interiors don't flatter the players, particularly Rhonda Fleming, erstwhile queen of Technicolor, who looks as if she's spent the day bathing her face and fingers in a basin of bleach. (The result of poor color grading by the lab). Her acting is not great shakes either, though Rowland Junior beats her hollow in the Least Convincing Performance department.
As for Rowland Senior, his direction is pretty routine, though he does put the action material over effectively enough for fans of the double-bill western. And that's what "Gun Glory" is — a movie designed at best for the top half of a midweek double bill, unpretentious, but moderately entertaining in its own modest way.
SYNOPSIS: Well acted and directed, this western deals with a rover (Granger) who returns home to find his son (Rowland, the real-life son of the director) grown up and embittered. Needless to say, thanks to the encroachments of a wicked cattleman against whom our rover eventually proves his mettle, dad eventually wins his son around. There is plenty of riding and shooting and the photography is equally exciting. — Adapted from Picture Show.
NOTES: Steve Rowland had a modest career. I was told he debuted in "The Student Prince", but I've not checked this information. Other films I have for him are 'Wild Youth' (1961), 'The Thin Red Line' (1964), "Battle of the Bulge" (1965), his father's 'Gunfighters of Casa Grande" (1965), and "Hallucination Generation" (1966).
COMMENT: Some wag of a colorful showman once described DeLuxe as "DeLousy". I wonder what epithet he came up with for "Metrocolor" — Eastman Color processed by M-G-M's laboratory. If "Gun Glory" is a fair sample of the lab's proficiency, you'd imagine the critics having a field day — if most of them weren't half blind. (Did I ever tell you about a certain city's two leading critics, one who couldn't see very clearly any further than three feet — even with her spectacles on — and the other who had to wear dark glasses at film screenings because the light hurt his eyes).
Actually, the exteriors come across with a fair degree of impact, but the interiors don't flatter the players, particularly Rhonda Fleming, erstwhile queen of Technicolor, who looks as if she's spent the day bathing her face and fingers in a basin of bleach. (The result of poor color grading by the lab). Her acting is not great shakes either, though Rowland Junior beats her hollow in the Least Convincing Performance department.
As for Rowland Senior, his direction is pretty routine, though he does put the action material over effectively enough for fans of the double-bill western. And that's what "Gun Glory" is — a movie designed at best for the top half of a midweek double bill, unpretentious, but moderately entertaining in its own modest way.