Man with the Gun (1955)

Director:

Richard Wilson

Writers:

N.B. Stone Jr. (story) and
Richard Wilson (story)

Release Date:

5 November 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

A man who lived and breathed violence!

Plot:

A stranger comes to town looking for his estranged wife. He finds her running the local girls. He also...

Plot Keywords:

Dancehall Girl | Dog Killed | Fire | Town Tamer | Gunslinger

Cast

Robert Mitchum	...	Clint Tollinger
Jan Sterling	...	Nelly Bain
Karen Sharpe	...	Stella Atkins
Henry Hull	...	Marshal Lee Sims
Emile Meyer	...	Saul Atkins
John Lupton	...	Jeff Castle
Barbara Lawrence	...	Ann Wakefield
Ted de Corsia	...	'Frenchy' Lescaux (as Ted De Corsia)
Leo Gordon	...	Ed Pinchot
James Westerfield	...	Mr. Zender (drummer)

Also Known As:

Deadly Peacemaker
The Trouble Shooter (UK)

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Australia:G | West Germany:12 (nf) | Norway:16 | USA:Approved (certificate #17526) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Formosa Productions

Quotes:

Stella Atkins: Those guns... all that talk about fighting... what happened to you today. I'm scared!
Jeff Castle: Honey, you just can't keep on turning the other cheek with a cemetery as big as we've got.

We need that guy right here and now!

I don't remember ever seeing this one before tonight, probably the title sounded so ordinary it kept passing me by. But it is a well crafted b Western, with an interestingly brooding storyline complimented by acting veering from the good to corny.

Robert Mitchum slopes into wide open town looking for his wife and news of their daughter, and stays for a time as town-tamer. As usual the good business folk have mixed emotions - they want to get rid of the baddies but like the business they bring. It still applies: relax drink and gambling laws and encourage the industries but pretend to deplore the seedy effects it can have on ordinary people. What's fascinating about this film is Mitchum's cynically intense portrayal in going about cleaning the town of baddies, and the townsfolk's acceptance that his violent methods were the only ones. Favourite bit: the sudden demise of 2 of the baddies in the Red Dog saloon. The firing of the main saloon bordered on nasty, but it was an effective way to combat the spread of poison.

Overall a very good film with its only fault tending to be a little hokeyness - not so good for Do-Gooders who would probably prefer a lifetime of negotiation with Evil rather than end it.