Hostile Guns
Hostile Guns
NR | 01 July 1967 (USA)
Hostile Guns Trailers

US Marshal Gid McCool leads a wagon train of convicted felons to Huntsville prison. The only female among the crooks is the dancehall girl Laura Mannon, McCool's former flame. When McCool cannot be swayed from completing his lawful duty, Laura tries to endear herself to shotgun rider Mike Reno in hopes he will set her free.

Reviews
Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!
Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.
Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Spikeopath Not a great deal to write home about here, Hostile Guns is every inch a late 1960s Oater clinging on to the fading embers of a genre that was at the time moving in another direction. It's directed by R.G. Springsteen and co-written by Steve Fisher, Sloan Nibley and James Edward Grant. It stars George Montgomery, Yvonne De Carlo, Tab Hunter, Brian Donlevy, John Russell and Leo Gordon. Music is by Jimmie Haskell and the Techniscope/Technicolor photography is by Lothrop Worth.Plot has Montgomery as Sheriff Gid McCool, who is tasked with escorting a wagon of prisoners through the plains. Tricky since one of the prisoners has cohorts desperate to break him free, while another one is an old flame!Tab Hunter is in the cast to bring down the average age of the cast, many of whom are going through the motions and are clearly in it to pick up a late in their career pay cheque. It's very much indicative of an A.C. Lyles production, the mixture of airy location shooting and crude rear projection work is most disconcerting. Brian Donlevy is front page billed but is in the film for two minutes, while the stunt doubles are ridiculously evident - which via the splicing are actually insulting. On the plus side there's a nice print available which showcases the good use of colour, and Gordon provides some good grumpy villainy, but it all trundles towards the inevitable climax, which all things considered isn't worth the wait. 5/10
Wuchak In 1967's "Hostile Guns" George Montgomery plays a Texas sheriff who hires young troublemaker (Tab Hunter) to help him transport a handful of prisoners to the state penitentiary in another town. The captives include a burley tough guy (Leo Gordon), an embezzling railroad big shot (Robert Emhardt), an amiable Mexican (Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez) and a woman who was forced to kill her no-good man (Yvonne DeCarlo). Gordon's character has relatives & friends who seek to break him free on the trip.This is basically a C-Grade version of "Stagecoach," but with a paddy wagon full of presumed ne'er-do-wells rather than just the Ringo Kid. Montgomery is an excellent masculine protagonist and the rest of the cast is solid, but the movie's letdown by the low-budget and melodramatic script. Like I said in my title blurb, the movie plays like a mediocre TV Western, which can be observed by the studio-bound sets and location shooting at Vasquez Rocks, where a lot of TV shows were shooting at the time (and to this day). This shouldn't come as a surprise since the director has a long history in TV productions.While the film is worth watching if you like the cast, its ineptness is sometimes glaring. Like the stuntman they use to replace Hunter in the longshots of a fistfight at the beginning where it's painfully obvious that the guy's not Hunter, to put it nicely. Speaking of this fight, the young punk takes on his out-of-shape uncle who appears to be at least 65 years old and the old guy holds his own and even appears to be winning. Why sure! The film runs 91 minutes.GRADE: C-
Wizard-8 In 1967, when "Hostile Guns" was released, the movie western had already started to change. Spaghetti westerns were starting to be shown on this side of the Atlantic, and dark themes and anti-hero characters were starting to show up. Compared to other westerns coming out around this time, much of "Hostile Guns" seems old-fashioned, like the movie was actually made ten years earlier. The story is pretty predictable, even with the various twists that happen along the way. Still, the movie is competently made for what it is. No, it won't convert a non-western fan to the genre, but those who love westerns will probably find it acceptable.
reelguy2 What a cast! What a so-bad-it's-good movie! George Montgomery plays U.S. Marshall Gid McCool (dig that name!), who's in charge of transporting a wagon train of convicted felons to a state prison in Texas. Tab Hunter, playing his umpteenth juvenile role while in his mid-thirties, is his upstart of a deputy. (He's also got the most obvious stunt double you've ever seen!) Yvonne De Carlo, sporting the longest false eyelashes and giving the worst performance ever by an actress in a western, is one of the prisoners. Not a stereotype left unplayed!