User Reviews

Not the most original nor interesting Scott western I've seen. Like various other reviewers have said, Alexander Knox just seems out of his tree as a cattle baron. I can see why he made a good Woodrow Wilson, or perhaps a good bank president, for example. John Russell would have made a much more believable Will Isham, but then he couldn't have taken part in that marathon brawl with Scott unless the script were rewritten. Similarly, Richard Rober made an unconvincing gunslinger in looks, although his target practice in the saloon was quite impressive. I'm still not positive whether Rober was trying to kill Scott(probably) or Isham, or both, when he burst into the building as Scott and Isham were descending the stairs. Scott ducked back to safety, and Isham, in front, shifted over to where Scott had been, when the revolver fired. That was 3 murders Rober was credited with, and he tried to make Scott number 4. Their shootout continued into the street, where a very strong wind complicated things a bit. Guess who eventually prevailed.

Returning to the brawl between Scott and Russell, not only did they destroy the breakaway furniture, they caused the breakaway cabin they were in to collapse! Very lucky they weren't buried under the rubble! They continued their fight over the romantic attention of Ellen Drew down a very steep slope next to a stream, with Ellen tumbling down the slope behind with a rifle. Russell finally managed to get on his horse for a get away before he got shot.

Another cliffhanger is when Scott was driving a chuck wagon, trying to outrun a cattle stampede, and the lantern in the back fell off and started a fire. He continued to drive the wagon until it was about to burn him up, when he unhitched the wagon at full speed and apparently jumped off just before what was left was wrecked.

The ending is rather unsatisfactory to me. What became of the Scott-Joan Leslie romantic relationship after Isham was murdered? Was she now damaged goods, so that a Scott-Joan union could not occur to combine their resources? Did Joan sell out to Scott or someone else? It appeared that Scott favored Ellen Drew at the end. She was a decade older than Joan, who was only half Scott's age.

During sizable chunks of the film, I hardly understood what was going on, riding around here and there, often in the dark.

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"Man in the Saddle" contains a love triangle, a ruthless wealthy rancher, a vicious gunfighter and a fight worthy of star Randolph Scott's fight with John Wayne in "The Spoilers" (1942).

Will Isham (Alexander Knox) is about to marry local gold digger Laurie Bidwell (Joan Leslie) who had once been involved with local rancher Owen Merritt (Scott). It seems that Laurie has found greener pastures with the rich and powerful Isham. At the wedding, Laurie banishes her drunken father (Don Beddoe) being ashamed of him.

Merritt along with other small ranchers Bourk Prine (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams) and the aging Lankershim (Clem Bevans) are targets for take over by Isham's Skull Ranch. The old man gives in and sells out making The Skull Ranch and Merritt's spread neighbors. Another neighboring small rancher Nan Melotte (Ellen Drew) has her eye on Merritt but is loved from afar by the mysterious Hugh Clagg (John Russell). Isham has hires gunman Dutcher (Richard Rober) to do his dirty work.

Dutcher and his men stampede the cattle of the small ranchers killing young Juke Vird, a Merritt hand, in the process. Juke's brother George (Cameron Mitchell) vows revenge but is also killed when he hoes after Dutcher. Dutcher attacks Merritt's ranch wounding him. Merritt is taken to a mountain hide out by Nan for protection.

Nan in advertently stands up Clagg for a date and he becomes furious. He tracks them to the isolated cabin and threatens to kill both Nan and Merritt. A fierce battle between the men breaks out with Merritt prevailing. Clegg returns to the Isham ranch but is brutally gunned down by Isham when he believes that Clagg was pursuing his wife.

The Skull Ranch riders head for town for a showdown with Owen Merritt and his followers. A gunfight ensues and Merritt ultimately gets Isham to agree to pull up stakes and move on just as Dutcher arrives and......................................................

Yep, that was Tennessee Ernie Ford (sans mustache) singing the title song and appearing at a campfire scene doing likewise. The fight scene between Scott and Russell (and their stunt doubles) was particularly well done. IThey bring the whole cabin down upon themselves as well as tumbling down a steep hill in battle. Scott is as somber and serious as always. Even though he was into his 50s, he still got to romance to young lovelies much younger than himself. Gunin Williams doesn't play the comical side kick this time but a more serious role. John Russell and Cameron Mitchell appear in early roles and the ever popular Alfonso Bedoya appears as the camp cook.

And yes, Randolph Scott wears his traditional leather jacket worn in many of his westerns, in this one too.

Randolph Scott (Owen Merritt), Joan Leslie (Laurie Bidwell), Ellen Drew (Nan Melotte), Alexander Knox (Will Isham), Richard Rober (Fay Dutcher), John Russell (Hugh Clagg), Alfondo Bedoya (Cultus Charlie), Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (Bourke Prine), Clem Bevans (Pay Lankershim), Cameron Mitchell (George Virk), Richard Crane (Duke Virk), Frank Sully (Lee Repp), Don Beddoe (Love Bidwell), George Lloyd (Tom Croker), James Kirkwood (Sheriff Medary), Frank Hagney (Ned Bale), Frank Ellis (townsman), Tennessee Ernie Ford (wrangler).

Director: ANDRE DE TOTH. Screenplay: Kenneth Gamet. Based on the novel by Ernest Haycox. Photographed in Technicolor by Charles Lawton, junior. Film editor: Charles Nelson. Art director: George Brooks. Set decorator: Frank Tuttle. Technicolor color consultant: Francis Cugat. Music: George Duning. Songs: Harold Lewis (music) and Ralph Murphy (lyrics). Music director: Morris Stoloff. Assistant to the producer: Herbert Stewart. Assistant director: Willard Reineck. Sound recording: Frank Goodwin. Associate producer: Randolph Scott. Producer: Harry Joe Brown. Executive producers: Harry Joe Brown, Randolph Scott.

A Scott-Brown Production, released through Columbia Pictures. Copyright 7 December 1951 by Producers Actors Corporation. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 2 December 1951. U.K. release: 28 June 1952. Australian release: 11 September 1952. 87 minutes.

U.K. release title: The OUTCAST.

SYNOPSIS: Owen Merritt, a small rancher, has to stand aside and see his ambitious girlfriend, Laurie Bidwell, marry a wealthy neighbor, Will Isham. Laurie's heart, however, is still with Owen. When Isham realizes this, he determines to destroy his rival.

COMMENT: This promising theme is none too well handled by a group of first-class technicians who should have known better than fall back on such old-fashioned devices as under-cranking the camera to speed up the action. Although well-motivated, the script also fails to deliver. The story develops into one long gun-fight, with brief interludes of talkative peace. The lovely Ellen Drew is wasted as Scott's also-ran love interest.

Here's a Randolph Scott Western with a very perplexing ending. The character of Laurie Bidwell Isham (Joan Leslie) was so inconsistent it managed to spoil what could have been an effective story. OK, she married Will Isham (Alexander Knox) for his wealth and ambition after throwing over Owen Merritt (Scott), the laid back rancher. Having second thoughts about the whole thing made sense, but after she planned to run off with Owen and then opted to stay with the heel, that just ripped it. For the writers, it seemed like a necessary angle for Scott's character to close the deal with Nan Melotte (Ellen Drew), but it should have been handled a lot more cleverly. Oh well.

Otherwise the story moved along at a nice pace and delivered it's share of action and suspense. One thing that seems virtually impossible to me though, and it's happened in a handful of Westerns I've seen, is how easily one can disengage the hitch on a runaway wagon the way Owen did in this one. It's often done with railroad cars as well, and I bet if you tried it yourself you'd strike out a hundred out of a hundred times because of the pressure forces at work.

I saw John Russell's name in the opening credits and darn if I didn't recognize him when he showed up as the taciturn henchman Hugh Clagg. The picture staged a fairly impressive one on one between Russell and Scott, that had to be carried outside after the cabin they were in fell apart. Seriously, you have to see it for yourself. They had a nice tumble down the hillside as well, but I had to wonder why Clagg's horse would have been waiting for him where he landed to make a getaway. Just like I wondered how Owen and Nan managed to drive their wagon up the mountain in the first place. If there was a clear trail to that cabin, why didn't Clagg use it to get there?

But tell you what, Randolph Scott didn't let me down in the wardrobe department. He donned his trademark all black outfit for the final showdown with the baddies, complementing it with a nice bandanna flourish. Bad guy Isham didn't make it to the end of the picture, so you're left to wonder whether Laurie wound up selling out to Merritt after he closes with Nan in a clinch. And steenkin' badges aside, Alfonso Bedoya fulfills his picture long wish to get a new hat.

There's a small lake that straddles the boundary separating Will Isham's Skull Ranch and Pay Lankershim's land. Isham (Alexander Knox), a powerful, determined and jealous megalomaniac, offers $50,000 cash if Pay sells his ranch to him this night, Isham's wedding night. It's worth maybe $9,000. There's enough water for both our herds, Pay says. "You don't get the idea," Isham says with a tumbler of brandy in his hand. "I'd only own half a lake. I don't own half of anything, Lankershim. I own it all, lock, stock and barrel. That goes for anything. Whatever I have is mine and mine alone. I'll share with no one."

Now Skull's boundary is up against Owen Merritt's land...and it will only be a matter of time before Isham goes after Owen (Randolph Scott). He's even brought in a hired gun to speed things along. And the woman Isham just married? Turns out Laurie Bidwell (Joan Leslie) is the woman Owen loves. She made her choice, however, because she wanted position and money, and that meant Isham, not Owen. After Owen nearly gets killed in a stampede engineered by Isham's men, Laurie is beginning to have doubts about her choice. She'd better remember what Isham told Pay: "Whatever I have is mine alone. I'll share with no one."

When Owen's men start getting killed, he decides to do some killing of his own. It's not long before it's just Owen Merritt against the power of Skull, and that means Will Isham and his hired guns. Thank goodness Owen has a few loyal ranch hands and one friend, spunky, feisty Nan Melotte, the blonde young owner of a small ranch next to Owen's. We know things are going to get much rougher in the next hour.

Man in the Saddle may be a B western, but it's a Randolph Scott B western. With me, that usually means a strong story even with clichés, most often a good villain or two, enough action to quickly pass the time and, of course, Scott. He was a big guy who could come across as grim, judgmental and dead serious. He also had perfected the persona of an honorable man of action. He had the screen presence to carry even B westerns. He had no trouble dominating his films, even when playing against an alpha male like Lee Marvin. I've always found a good deal of pleasure watching a Randolph Scott western.

Joan Leslie has a much more complicated character to play than most B movie westerns call for. Her Laurie Isham comes from a hardscrabble past. She loves, in her way, Owen. She marries Isham because she yearns for position and security. She winds up trying to be loyal to both. Leslie manages to carry it off so well we sort of admire Laurie and how she's trying to handle the fix she's put herself in. To see Joan Leslie at her freshest and friendliest, find a copy of The Sky's the Limit. At barely 18 she stars opposite Fred Astaire and shares a fast, funny song and dance routine with him, "A Lot in Common with You." Leslie just about keeps up with Astaire and he makes it seem easy for her. When she can manage just two air-borne turns (which she does with grace and precision), he hits three but places himself just a little in front of her to disguise the difference.

For those fond of pound-'em-into-the-ground fistfights, Man in the Saddle features a lulu. Scott and John Russell, an equally big guy who plays a man with a vicious temper who has a hankerin' for Nan, start walloping each other in a mountain shack, then slip-slide down a rocky, snow covered mountainside going after each other with fists, rocks and tree limbs. The stunt doubles earned their money with this one.

Man in the Saddle is no classic, but it turns out to be one of the better westerns Scott made during this period.

I have to say this is one of the better Randolph Scott pictures that I've seen from his career previous to the "Ranown" films. It has a much more compelling story than a lot of standard oaters from the 40s and 50s, with not one but two interesting female characters.

Scott plays Owen Merritt, a tough rancher who is provoked into a range war by the uber-competitive Will Isham (Alexander Knox). Isham has married a former flame of Merritt's (Joan Leslie) and can't stand the thought that she might have residual feelings for Merritt. Also in the mix is the more tomboyish Ellen Drew who plays a neighboring rancher who helps Merritt and falls in love with him.

There's a very interesting social subtext to the story with the two women -- the Leslie character is from a poor rural background but wants to escape her history, while the Drew character is more grounded and self-aware and doesn't want to run from her own life. The Knox character is also interesting, psychotic and yet noble. Richard Rober plays the more coldhearted gunslinger who he hires to do his dirty work, and the dynamic between Rober and Knox is interesting as well.

I quite enjoyed it and will gladly watch it again. It's not hugely memorable, and the ending is a bit of a let-down, but it has quite a few nice moments and a good western atmosphere with a more interesting story and characters than most. Andre de Toth's direction is very efficient and stately.

There are generally two things that can cause two men to draw down on each other: money and women. In "Man in the Saddle" there was a woman that caused a stir between Owen Merritt (Randolph Scott) and Will Isham (Alexander Knox). Laurie Bidwell (Joan Leslie) used to be with Owen, then somewhere along the line she abruptly split up with Owen and decided to marry Will.

Will was a wealthy man who got what he wanted and didn't want to share anything he had with anyone else. The fact that Owen still had a piece of Laurie's heart bothered him immensely. Will's solution to the problem was to have Owen killed. For that he hired a Texas gunman named Fay Dutcher (Richard Rober).

"Man in the Saddle" was an OK western. I was impressed most with the color. It seems that 1951 was the year the film industry figured out how to properly colorize movies where they look more realistic. Some of the earlier attempts to colorize were bad. Sometimes a part of a person would be in color while the other part was in black & white.

There wasn't much to "Man in the Saddle." Owen was the good guy who would never shoot a man unless he had to, and he'd never shoot him in the back. Dutcher was the bad guy who had no compunctions about killing. The final showdown wasn't as good as we'd see in westerns of the 60's, and that's always a letdown.

In the final showdown Owen had Dutcher dead to rights. Owen had his gun trained on him while Dutcher had his back turned and his hands in the air. Owen ordered him to throw down his gun and start marching to the sheriff's office. Dutcher threw down the gun, but instead of beginning his walk of shame, he dove onto the ground to where his gun was, grabbed the gun, turned around and fired before Owen could get a shot off. Owen returned fire, mortally wounding Dutcher, but not until after he was struck in the arm with a bullet.

Now, it occurred to me that Owen had an opportunity to shoot Dutcher before he could fire a round, but that he was such a good guy he would only shoot after his opponent shot first (or at least after he grabbed his gun). It also occurred to me that this would be a dumb course of action. Hollywood camera tricks would have us believe that Dutcher moved with the quickness of a jumping spider and Owen barely had time to return fire before he was hit in the arm. There's no way Dutcher could dive 5-10 feet onto the ground, grab his gun, roll over and fire before Owen put three or more holes in him first. "Man in the Saddle" gets a ding for that cinematic stretch.

Free on Crackle.

I saw Man In the Saddle decades ago and rewatched it recently. It is at once memorable and yet well below average. Memorable because instead of the usual revenge plot or greed-driven villainy, the two main villains are men obsessed with women who are indifferent to them and who finally explode into shocking violence which lingers after everything else about the film is forgotten. Well below average because of an underdeveloped script, flaccid direction, miscasting, and indifferent performances.

The miscasting begins with the star. Randolph Scott was 53 when this movie was made and while the leathery old dog might still be able to turn a few bonnets, he does seem a bit long in the tooth to find himself being chased by two women young enough to be his daughters. The implications of the plot may have bothered Scott. I saw Man In the Saddle back to back with Riding Shotgun and his torpid performance here is a night and day contrast with his forceful effort in the more traditional Shotgun. The two leading ladies, Ellen Drew and Joan Leslie, were third-stringers from the forties whose careers faded with their youth. Drew gets by in an undemanding part which requires little more than looking longingly in the direction of Scott now and then, but Leslie is woefully out of her depth. Laurie Bidwell Isham is an icy, calculating woman who shucks Scott, the love of her life, to enter into a business marriage with the wealthy Will Isham, well played by Alexander Knox. She coldly rebuffs the repressed Isham's fumbling intimations of affection, leaving no doubt that one clause in their marriage contract was separate bedrooms. She also tosses her father out of her wedding reception and her life as he reminds her all too forcefully that she came from the wrong side of the pasture. The echoes of the wedding bells have barely faded before she is secretly riding under the stars back to Scott. This role required an actress of the depth of a Patricia Neal. It got Leslie rehashing her chirpy ingenue performances of the war years.

Alexander Knox as Will Isham and John Russell as Hugh Clagg, the two spurned lovers, are the movie's only real assets. Isham goes sour, but he has a better side and one gets the impression an affectionate Laurie might have brought it out. When Laurie offers to go away with him at the climax, he abandons all plans for revenge or power and briskly agrees, only to be almost immediately shot down by his own hired gun. Russell is intense in the redundant role of a man hopelessly obsessed with Drew. I think he is miscast. He is twenty years younger than Scott, is strikingly handsome, and has an engaging smile. He should have switched roles with Richard Rober, pallid as a foppish gunslinger. Russell would have made a much more menacing killer. Rober's ordinary looks and bland personality might have convinced as the rejected suitor.

The movie only really comes alive when Isham or Clagg boil over into outbursts of violence. The rest is slow soap-opera complications and heavy-handed comedy relief, punctuated by a few ordinary action scenes. The final shootout between Scott and Rober is forgettable. Andre De Toth proves himself a limited director. The script meanders along various tangents, but leaves the pivotal character of Isham somewhat underdeveloped and the perhaps even more pivotal character of Laurie totally undeveloped. She marries a man she doesn't love for his money and when he is killed at least partially because of her behavior, she ends up with the money. Is that all? A better script would have fleshed out this role and possibly fished for some irony in the ending.

All in all, there might have been a good movie underneath all the dross struggling to get out, but it never made it. As is, seeing and hearing a young Ernie Ford sing is a nostalgic treat. Otherwise, at best a time filler for a rainy day.