Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

classicsoncall This movie doesn't get much respect from the other reviewers on this board, but if you watched it back to back on the Encore Western Channel following 1960's "Gun Fight" like I just did, you'd think it was a pretty good Western. What made it for me was seeing John Dehner in his role as a greasy, bearded gang leader intent on looting the town of Casper, Wyoming. Man, that was some make up job on Dehner, he looked tougher in this role than any other I've seen him in. Trouble is, he was pretty inept when you come right down to it. He lost what, about fifteen men in the raid on the town? Makes you wonder how he ever made it that far as a career outlaw. He didn't make one right call, especially after having half of his gang taken out right at the entrance of town. Oh well.For his part, Sterling Hayden's a pretty laid back gunslinger as he investigates the circumstances of his mother's death and the sale of her ranch to town big-wig Canby Judd (William Bishop). There's always some nitwit cowpoke gunning for the fastest draw in the territory, and this time it's Rod Taylor's turn to get his due from Rick Martin's (Hayden) fast gun.I had to scratch my head over that phony mortgage business though, that deal whereby Judd hoodwinked Martin's mother into selling her ranch to him. It was explained that she signed a bill of sale that was somehow covered over by a mortgage note in a latter day cut and paste job. I realize the 1880's was a simpler time, but really, how does something like that work? I guess if you're not paying close attention to the picture this would blow right by you, but as you can see, I'm still thinking about it.Well we've seen it before in picture's like "High Noon", a woman saves the day at the end of the story by getting the drop on the bad guy after coming to her senses. Martin made the right call by going after Quentin (Dehner) even with a gun pointed at his back. You just knew that somewhere off screen, Miss Mead (Karen Booth) was getting ready to break off the engagement to her slimy fiancée. Nice shooting there Laura.

dougdoepke What a shame that a really competent director like Andre de Toth who specialized in slippery, shifting alliances didn't get hold of this concept first. He could have helped bring out the real potential, especially with the interesting character played by William Bishop. As the movie stands, it's pretty much of a mess (as asserted by reviewer Chipe). The main problems are with the direction, cheap budget, and poor script. The strength lies in an excellent cast and an interesting general concept-- characters pulled in different directions by conflicting forces. What was needed was someone with vision enough to pull together the positive elements by reworking the script into some kind of coherent whole, instead of the sprawling, awkward mess that it is, (try to figure out the motivations and interplay if you can). Also, a bigger budget could have matched up contrasting location and studio shots, and gotten the locations out of the all-too-obvious LA outskirts. The real shame lies in a waste of an excellent cast-- Hayden, Taylor (before his teeth were capped), Dehner, Reeves, along with James Millican and William Bishop shortly before their untimely deaths. Few films illustrate the importance of an auteur-with-vision more than this lowly obscure Western, which, in the right hands, could have been so much more.

Neil Doyle Western fans who like their stories brisk and to the point, should find enough reason to like this mildly interesting western with STERLING HAYDEN as a gunslinger who returns to his hometown after a prison stay and runs into trouble again when he finds corruption rampant and the town's citizens all have him wrongly responsible for a series of murders.KAREN BOOTH is the love interest and she gets to play a crucial role toward the climax when she saves Hayden from a gunman's bullet. WILLIAM BISHOP is a corrupt landowner who had something to do with the death of Hayden's mom and becomes his staunch adversary throughout the plot.The opening credits fail to mention ROD TAYLOR who plays a town bully interested in provoking Hayden into a gunfight. He makes a convincing braggart with hardly a trace of his Austrlian accent showing. But the real villain of the piece is JOHN DEHNER as the head of an outlaw gang that Sterling Hayden tries to warn the villagers about.It's a decent enough western with a theme similar to HIGH NOON in that the town's sheriff has trouble rounding up a posse to take care of the invading outlaws.Summing up: All of the principal players do a decent enough job but it's more or less a standard western with some conniving characters getting their comeuppance in time for Hayden and Booth to ride off into the sunset.

Single-Black-Male Having acted alongside Bette Davis and Joan Collins in 'The Virgin Queen' the previous year, the 25 year old Rod Taylor progressed from extra work to small acting roles in films like this one. Although he was born in Australia, you didn't notice his Australian accent.