Robert Taylor made this picture at Paramount in the late 1950s. He was older, but still in good shape and still every inch the star. Like most aging leading men, he had turned to westerns, and the genre suits him just fine.
The film is directed by Michael Curtiz, nearing the end of his Hollywood career. And the screenplay is one of Dudley Nichols' last efforts (he died six months after THE HANGMAN was released). Costars include Fess Parker whose amiable charms are a nice contrast to no-nonsense Taylor; as well as Tina Louise and Jack Lord who had worked together in GOD'S LITTLE ACRE a year earlier. Lord is particularly good; he's given the villain role but manages to be quite likable on screen.
Taylor plays a marshal named Mac Bovard who doesn't care for the nickname people have given him. It was earned because of his ability to track down fugitives and bring them to justice- usually the men he rounds up are found guilty and hanged soon afterward. The situation is something Mac wants to put in the past, and after catching a guy named Butterfield (Lord's character), he intends to head west and start a new career as a lawyer. The problem is that Butterfield is using an alias and the only one who can positively identify him is a former girlfriend known as Selah Jennison (Tina Louise).
It's obvious Mac and Selah will fall in love, when Selah accompanies the lawman on his journey to apprehend Butterfield. But it's hardly a conventional romance because she decides to betray him and help Butterfield escape custody. Complicating matters is Buck Weston, the friendly sheriff played by Parker.
Buck has also taken a shine to Selah, and he wants to marry her. After she's forgiven for betraying Mac, she must choose between the two men. The characters don't really hold grudges very long in this story. Mac has a change of heart after he recaptures Butterfield and ends up letting him go. Something that impresses Selah and makes her choose Mac over Buck.
We have learned along the way that Butterfield's crime involved the death of Mac Bovard's brother. So for much of the picture's running time there is a personal need for Mac to make sure Butterfield gets what's coming to him. But by the end of the story, he realizes a hanging would probably be too harsh, since Butterfield did not actually cause the death and was mostly an innocent bystander. Maybe Mac also lets him go, so that in addition to getting the girl he will no longer be known as The Hangman.
Paramount did not allocate a huge budget for this programmer. In some ways it looks like they've borrowed sets that were probably in use for western TV shows of the day, so there is a bit of ordinariness in how the town and the hotel rooms look. They were mainly just trying to tell a good story, and I'd say they succeeded.
Probably the best part of the film, aside from the main cast, is character actress Mabel Albertson. She plays a society woman who appears in a comic relief subplot during the first half. Widow Hopkins comes to town on the same stage as Mac Bovard, and she assumes she might charm him into having dinner with her and spending time together.
Mac snubs her, because she's rather pushy, and he has an important job to do. Mrs. Hopkins then finds out Mac brought Selah Jennison to the hotel on another stage, without benefit of marriage, and she gets a bit spiteful. But as much as her heart's been broken, I don't think she'd want to see anyone hanged for it.
The film is directed by Michael Curtiz, nearing the end of his Hollywood career. And the screenplay is one of Dudley Nichols' last efforts (he died six months after THE HANGMAN was released). Costars include Fess Parker whose amiable charms are a nice contrast to no-nonsense Taylor; as well as Tina Louise and Jack Lord who had worked together in GOD'S LITTLE ACRE a year earlier. Lord is particularly good; he's given the villain role but manages to be quite likable on screen.
Taylor plays a marshal named Mac Bovard who doesn't care for the nickname people have given him. It was earned because of his ability to track down fugitives and bring them to justice- usually the men he rounds up are found guilty and hanged soon afterward. The situation is something Mac wants to put in the past, and after catching a guy named Butterfield (Lord's character), he intends to head west and start a new career as a lawyer. The problem is that Butterfield is using an alias and the only one who can positively identify him is a former girlfriend known as Selah Jennison (Tina Louise).
It's obvious Mac and Selah will fall in love, when Selah accompanies the lawman on his journey to apprehend Butterfield. But it's hardly a conventional romance because she decides to betray him and help Butterfield escape custody. Complicating matters is Buck Weston, the friendly sheriff played by Parker.
Buck has also taken a shine to Selah, and he wants to marry her. After she's forgiven for betraying Mac, she must choose between the two men. The characters don't really hold grudges very long in this story. Mac has a change of heart after he recaptures Butterfield and ends up letting him go. Something that impresses Selah and makes her choose Mac over Buck.
We have learned along the way that Butterfield's crime involved the death of Mac Bovard's brother. So for much of the picture's running time there is a personal need for Mac to make sure Butterfield gets what's coming to him. But by the end of the story, he realizes a hanging would probably be too harsh, since Butterfield did not actually cause the death and was mostly an innocent bystander. Maybe Mac also lets him go, so that in addition to getting the girl he will no longer be known as The Hangman.
Paramount did not allocate a huge budget for this programmer. In some ways it looks like they've borrowed sets that were probably in use for western TV shows of the day, so there is a bit of ordinariness in how the town and the hotel rooms look. They were mainly just trying to tell a good story, and I'd say they succeeded.
Probably the best part of the film, aside from the main cast, is character actress Mabel Albertson. She plays a society woman who appears in a comic relief subplot during the first half. Widow Hopkins comes to town on the same stage as Mac Bovard, and she assumes she might charm him into having dinner with her and spending time together.
Mac snubs her, because she's rather pushy, and he has an important job to do. Mrs. Hopkins then finds out Mac brought Selah Jennison to the hotel on another stage, without benefit of marriage, and she gets a bit spiteful. But as much as her heart's been broken, I don't think she'd want to see anyone hanged for it.