User Reviews

"Last Of The Fast Guns" is an okay Western, not bad, but not worth some of the high grades I see here on IMDb from some of the people (I admit very few) who actually saw it. I just saw it again on Sunday (Encore Westerns), after a number of years, and the flaws I saw back then were even more obvious than before: 1: There is absolutely no chemistry between Brad Ellison (Jock Mahoney) and Maria O'Reilly (Linda Crystal). For the Western fan who knows who Linda Crystal was ("Two Rode Together", "The Fiend That Walked The West", "High Chaparrel" & "The Alamo") you get what I mean , and know Linda possessed incredible beauty and charm. For those who don't, think Salma Hayak and you get the picture. Thus, how could Linda be cast and have no chemistry? I do not get it 2: Having that title and (Spoilers ahead) no major gunfight, with Brad killing bad guy Miles Land (Gilbert Roland) with a lasso. 3: Not enough action. Go see "Son Of A Gunfighter" instead. Same theme (Including hiding out in Mexico from your past (Like Edward Forbes/Padre Jose (Eduard Franz) and others do (And which Brad will do at the end) , but more action (Including gunfights), and better 1,000 times chemistry between the American man and Mexican woman. Basically a fair western. 6/10 stars.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The Last of the Fast Guns (1958) isn't a bad Western and the location is gorgeous, I think that's what pulls it through. At the start, two gunfighters shoot it out in town and the winner is invited to speak with an old man. He offers the winning gunfighter a job, to go look for his lost brother, who disappeared in Mexico. Jock Mahoney plays the gunfighter, and he isn't very magnetic or interesting, but nonetheless he possesses the gunfighter creed.

Mexican actor Gilbert Roland is here as well, the same as usual, being suave and smoking a lot. He works for Lorne Greene, who is gone for most of the picture. The gunfighter looks for the supposed-dead brother and finds a bit of a mystery. The ending was rather contrived, but it isn't a horrible picture.

After viewing the fast draw at the waterhole many times in freeze-frame, I think it was faked. Looks like Mahoney started his draw with his gun out of his holster, and the sound of the gun clearing the holster was added post-production. Just my take on it.

Superior-to-great script, charged dialog. Hate to say it, but the ending was a disappointment. The anticipated gunfight was short and the fight was resolved by other means. Better if Mahoney had just shot him dead. No film is perfect.

When I was in Japan, this film was shown a number of times on their TV. The Japanese were big on things like friendship/betrayal.

Give it a 9 because of the way it ended. Highly recommended.

Future Tarzan star Jock Mahoney starred in several westerns in the 1950s along with the short-lived TV series "Range Rider" and later "Yancey Derringer." He plays a two-gun gunslinger dressed in black named Brad Ellison in this scenic western. Gilbert Roland, Lorne Green, and Linda Cristal co-star as friends and/or enemies. Basically, this is a track-down western with our lean, rugged hero on the trail of a dying man's brother who is willing to pay Ellison the kind of money that can change his life. Veteran western director George Sherman of "Big Jake" fame directed this 80-minute oater that never wears out its welcome. If you want to categorize "Last of the Fast Guns," then it falls into the decline of the western, rather like "The Magnificent Seven," as the wide open spaces have begun to shrink. Technically, based on the information that our hero shares with three other fast guns, "Last of the Fast Guns" takes place in the 1880s after the demise of Billy the Kid.

"Johnny Concho" scenarist David P. Harmon penned this no-nonsense horse opera and his dialogue is exceptional. Rarely does anybody utter a line that isn't memorable. Although the characters may be thinly drawn, our hero undergoes a change by fade-out. A crippled man, John Forbes (Carl Benton-Red of "Escape from Fort Bravo"), waits in a dusty town to hire the survivor of a gunfight, and a reluctant Ellison agrees to ride south to Mexico and search for Edward Forbes. Essentially, "Last of the Fast Guns" concerns the journey as much as the ending. Once he crosses into Mexico, Ellison rides into the ranch of Michael O'Reilly (Lorne Greene) where he meets Miles Lang (Gilbert Roland of "Any Gun Can Play") who has spent his entire life searching for gold. Everybody that Ellison comes into contact with has a story about Edward Forbes, but nobody can tell our hero where to find this fellow or his grave. During his stay at the O'Reilly Ranch, Ellison saves Miles' life when a bad horse tries to attack him. No, our hero doesn't shoot the horse. Suffice to say that everybody survives this fracas. Miles agrees to accompany Ellison on his search as a way of thanking him for saving his life.

"Last of the Fast Guns" packs surprises and reversals. Western fans will love this oater.

The grave at the beginning seems too big for a man. It yawns unfilled even after the man Brad Ellison came to town to kill dies. The grave is bigger than just another revenge shooting.

After the gunfight, Ellison is invited to meet John Forbes, the town magnate, a man crippled, dying and desperate to find his missing brother and intended beneficiary of his will, in order to keep his legacy out of the hands of an unscrupulous business partner, so that this wealth may do good in the world. One wonders if this criminal partner was responsible for John Forbes's being in a wheelchair, and in failing health, although such is never stated. The man's predicament does stir a flicker of humanity in the gun-for-hire, and Forbes then offers him a way to escape his life of killing by effectively resurrecting the lost brother, offering him the price of the proverbial 'Ranch in Oregon' that all gunfighters yearn to retire to.

Later we realise that the ominous grave, that greeted Brad on his road to this fateful town, will come to hold all those who attempt to resurrect Edward Forbes from the oblivion into which he has chosen to cast his own identity. So many, in fact, that Edward Forbes, eventually resurrected from his assumed identity, and buried - as it were - in the (magically filmed) Mexican countryside, observes that there is no more room in that quiet grave for him, and thereupon decides to end all the killing by surrendering his anonymity and going home to his dying brother.

It turns out that his brother's business partner has been hiring guns to dispose of this threat to being able to grab the valuable inheritance from it's rightful beneficiary. Possibly the gun Brad kills at the outset of the drama was one of these? Certainly, the friend he makes of Miles Lang, and whose life he saves during his quest, is only the longest-surviving emissary of Death to seek such unholy riches.

Once our gunfighter relinquishes his arms in a growing realisation of just who he is dealing with - actually an unexpected and Christ-like figure who is an inspiration to his adopted People - and becomes a true moral hero, this false friend Miles is disposed of.

Thereafter, in a poignant final scene, the reformed gunslinger sees a path to that 'Ranch in Oregon' opening before him - - - 'Or in Mexico' says the departing Priest, inviting Ellison to stay and do some good in this land, himself.

And so the career of a fast gun is reformed, and a good and decent man appears in his place. 'Oh Death where is thy sting?' as the vanished Padre might intone over that now closing grave, that so troubled the killer's conscience. A sublime Western.

Photographed entirely in Mexico in CinemaScope and Eastman Color by Pathé. Producer: Howard Christie. A Universal-International Picture. Copyright 1958 by Universal-International. No New York opening. U.S. release: 27 July 1958. U.K. release: 29 June 1958. Australian release: 2 May 1958. 7,370 feet. 82 minutes. Cut by Universal in Australia to 69 minutes so that the film would slot easily into the lower half of double bills.

SYNOPSIS: Gunfighter Brad Ellison (Jock Mahoney) accepts an offer from wealthy John Forbes (Carl Benton Reid) to locate his brother who disappeared in Mexico thirty years ago. At Sam Grypton's (Edward Platt) hide-out for gunfighters he gets no clues. After a brush with bandits, Brad meets rancher O'Reilly (Lorne Greene), his daughter, Maria (Linda Cristal) and his foreman, Miles (Gilbert Roland) who are convinced Forbes died ten years ago, but Miles offers to help Brad's search.

COMMENT: A lively, fast-moving western in which director George Sherman not only puts his action across with punch, but with style, making full use of his CinemaScope cameras to capture some impressively rugged terrain of Mexico's mountain wilderness.

A tight, taut story, soundly acted. In fact, one of our favorite actors, Gilbert Roland, is back in the saddle with "Last of the Fast Guns". This silly title disguises a fascinating Mexican western. Not only lots of broodingly atmospheric scenery, but some rather interesting Mexican actors as well, including Eduardo Noriega who made such an impression in the Mario Lanza "Serenade"; George Trevino, well known to "I Love Lucy" fans as Desi's Cuban uncle; Francisco Reguiera, a film veteran of Mack Sennett comedies; and young Gilda Fontana, a former Hollywood starlet who switched to Mexico.

There's something I've always liked about westerns from this period that star Jock Mahoney. He began as a Hollywood stuntman, and his athleticism and natural acting style make him ideal for this genre. When his character is meant to ride into a scene fast and jump off, as happens in this picture, there is no double.

Mahoney does most of his own stunt work; there are never quick cutaways by the editors to go to the double and then back to him in close-up. As a result, there is greater fluidity with the camera when he is on the scene, which increases the realism.

I also think Mahoney, while not exuding tremendous sex appeal, still manages to have respectable chemistry with his leading ladies. In this film the leading lady is Argentinian born actress Linda Cristal who would make her mark later in a popular TV western series called High Chaparral. She was under contract at Universal and would soon earn her first Golden Globe for a comedy supporting Tony Curtis.

Here Cristal is cast as the part Mexican daughter of an expatriate American (Lorne Greene) who has settled on a ranch south of the border. Greene is right at home and seems to be practicing for his long-running role as Ben Cartwright on Bonanza. At first Greene's character seems suspicious, because everyone in the story is meant to come across with ulterior motives...at least, until we get to know them.

Mahoney has been hired by a rich eastern man (Carl Benton Reid) to travel to Mexico and find out if the man's brother is still alive. The last two gunfighters Reid hired to do the job ended up killed. Mahoney accepts the assignment, since he will earn a substantial fee which he'll need to settle down. After arriving in Mexico, Mahoney meets some famous ex-gunman who have "retired" down here. But they claim to know nothing about the person Mahoney is seeking.

In the next part, when Mahoney meets Greene and Greene's top foreman (Gilbert Roland), he wonders if Greene has had a role in the brother's disappearance. Greene does know where the mystery man is hiding, but Greene turns out to be a good guy. The person that Mahoney should be on guard about is Roland, who has his own double cross in mind.

One thing I love about this film, aside from it being filmed mostly on location in Mexico in Eastman color, is the way the story is structured. The first half has Mahoney on a mission but also sort of nomadic, figuring out what the next part of his life will be after he completes his mission. Related to this is a mystery, since he does not know where the missing man is actually hiding.

In a good twist, it turns out the man is hiding in plain sight, as a beloved priest of the people.. The priest, who is called Padre, is played by character actor Eduard Franz. Franz was a Universal contractee. Just a year earlier he played a disturbed old man who stalked the child of clergyman George Nader in MAN AFRAID (1957). This time he's on the right side of the law and the right side of God.

Before we find out that Franz is the man that Mahoney is looking for in Mexico, there are some good bonding scenes between Mahoney and Roland. This makes it rather unfortunate when halfway through the picture, Roland turns out to be a villain who intends to kill the priest to collect a different bounty that will be paid by a man in San Antonio who wants the padre dead.

We know that in order for Mahoney to save Franz, he is going to have to kill Roland. This eventually leads to a climactic shooting with Roland falling to his death off the side of a steep cliff. After the death of Roland's character, Mahoney then has to decide if he will take the priest away from the peasants who need him, to return him to his brother in the U. S. Ultimately, he decides against it.

In the end, Mahoney sacrifices the hefty reward he'd have received for his work, which he planned to use to buy a ranch of his own in Oregon. But now he will just remain in Mexico, commit to a future with Cristal, and will probably end up running Greene's ranch. So, it's not like this adventure has all been for nothing.