FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Brooklynn There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Spikeopath The Stranger Wore a Gun is directed by Andre De Toth and adapted to screenplay by Kenneth Gamet from the story Yankee Gold written by John W. Cunningham. It stars Randolph Scott, Claire Trevor, Joan Weldon, George Macready, Alfonso Bedoya, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Pierre Watkin. Technicolor/3-Dimension production, music is by Mischa Bakaleinikoff and cinematography by Lester White. Jeff Travis (Scott) was a spy for Quantrill's Raiders, but after disagreeing with the savagery he witnessed during The Lawrence Massacre, he decides to head off to Prescott, Arizona to start a new life. Unfortunately his reputation precedes him and it's not long before he is in the middle of robberies and murder as the hunger for gold rears its ugly head. As anyone who has seen it in its 2D print will attest, the 3D moments in this look rather bad, some films have been able to get away with it, but this is not one of them. However, mercifully this isn't a production that throws things at the screen every five minutes, or one that films every action sequence in depth perception. As it is, the 3D scenes are the least of the problems on show here, where were it not for the stoic Scott, the lovely Trevor and the novelty value of early turns from Marvin and Borgnine, then this would actually be a below average disaster. It's sometimes fun, but not always intentionally, and it looks very nice from a location perspective (Alabama Hills, Lone Pine), but the cast are saddled with a mediocre and unadventurous screenplay. The subject of Travis' past is briefly dangled, intriguingly so, with the fact that he is scarred from his "work" as a soldier of the Civil War grabbing the attention, but it's quickly dispensed with to pitch this interesting character into a cliché riddled "town rascals at work" plot. There's a boorish love triangle that's as pointless as it is obvious as to where it will end up, and Bedoya is irritatingly awful to the point his scenes are practically unwatchable. De Toth seems strangely off form on this one, you would tend to think the 3D filming had him losing his focus, but in this same year he crafted the hugely successful House of Wax in 3D. So he obviously had a knack for depth filming. He also this same year made Thunder Over the Plains with Scott, a significantly better Western than what is on offer here. In one fight scene between Scott and Borgnine, the director struggles to hide the fact that Borgnine has suddenly lost 50 pounds and Scott is 15 years younger! It's very poor from a director who undoubtedly had great talent. It's one for fans of the name actors only this one, a picture to tick off your lists, to be forgotten and consigned to Cinema Boothill. 5/10

wes-connors An enjoyable western, with a fair storyline. I especially liked the hot "fire scene". The confrontation between Randolph Scott and Ernest Borgnine was also fun - with Mr. Borgnine throwing junk at the camera! Borgnine and Lee Marvin are both fun to watch, in these early career roles. Claire Trevor is getting older, will Mr. Scott still choose her; or, will the sweet young thing give him a spin?"The Stranger Wore a Gun" was originally shot, by director André De Toth, in "3D"; this gives it a unique "look", I thought; and, some of the photography is very nice. I found the story difficult to follow, though. I really dig that statue in front of Juniper House. ***** The Stranger Wore a Gun (1953) André De Toth ~ Randolph Scott, Claire Trevor, Ernest Borgnine

Michael O'Keefe Randolph Scott plays Jeff Travis, who worked as a spy during the Civil War for the lawless Quantrill's Raiders. One of the last jobs Travis took part in resulted in innocent victims being slaughtered. Travis leaves Quantrill and heads west to Arizona, where he takes a job spying for a stage company trying to protect their gold shipments. In reality the stranger with gun savvy is working with a strong willed loyalist(George Macready) to the Confederation trying to discover where scads of gold is being hid.Scott is his typical stoic self and has strong support from the alluring Claire Trevor and Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Joan Weldon and Alfonso Bedoya.

Robert J. Maxwell The location shooting was done at Movie Flats off Route 395 near Lone Pine, California, and, along with a lot of faces in this film, will be familiar to experienced moviegoers. They've been making movies up there for years. The rocks themselves are studded with bolts and adhesions of cement left over from early productions, which date back at least to "Gunga Din." And it's easy to see why it was used so often in inexpensive Westerns like this. The jumbo-sized boulders seem made of stucco and the Sierra Nevadas in the background include Mt. Whitney, as colorful as a painted backdrop. The whole place looks as if nature had put it there to be used as a spectacularly realistic phony movie set.Yes, it's alive with history. The ghosts of a thousand extras in sombreros haunt these rugged trails, and at night when the wind moans you can hear the hoofbeats of yesteryear. Zzzzz. Some of the ghosts must surely include Randolph Scott, who spent so much time before the cameras here in so many movies. In this one, he's an ex-confederate who allows himself to be hired out to save a stagecoach company that ships gold to -- well, never mind.Scott is in his burnished Western middle age and rides his usual horse, a beautiful mount, a kind of rusty brown animal with a white face, white maine, and white tail. (I was momentarily tempted to call the horse a "roan" but hesitated to do so because I don't know what the word means.) Anyway, the horse will be almost as familiar as Scott. Scott's hat will look familiar too. So will Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin, the two outstanding heels of "Bad Day at Black Rock," but they don't get enough screen time. Alfonso Bedoya, Gold Hat from "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," has more screen time. He can't act, but he doesn't have to. If you think he did curious things to the word "badges" in "Treasure," you absolutely must hear how he wraps his speech organs around "foreigner" in this one. George MacReady is the chief villain. I prefer it when his villainy is of a slyer, more boardroom-bound sort.Claire Trevor is a hooker with a heart of gold. I know it's hard to believe, but hookers come in all different varieties. Joan Weldon is pretty and was a singer rather than an actress. There is a marvelous scene in which Scott introduces his old girl friend, Trevor, to Weldon, the new young beauty he's just met, and the two women trade the kind of insults and suspicious queries that only women know how to sling about. "It's funny he never mentioned you to me." And, "From the way he described you, I thought you'd be much older." Scott, meanwhile, is standing there with this dumb smile, looking back and forth at his two friends, as if pleased that they are being so nice to one another, giving an excellent impression of a man who hasn't the slightest idea of what's going on between them. Movies like this don't crop up on TV very often and sometimes, remembering how much I enjoyed them as a child, I find myself missing them. Then sometimes they DO show up, as this one did, and I watch it out of curiosity and wind up realizing that there are a lot of things to be nostalgic about but Westerns like this aren't among them.