Excellent, a Must See

Best movie ever!

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Directed by Stuart Heisler, and written by John Twist, this needlessly complex and talky Western with a B movie feel that includes some comedy (intentional or otherwise) might please only fans of its lead actor Gary Cooper, who plays a familiar role as a wronged man waging a solo battle of revenge.Coop plays Blayde 'Red' Hollister, a Confederate army officer who'd headed west after the Civil War to find and kill those responsible for torching his home and killing his family in Georgia. He's pretty sure it was the Marlow brothers, but he needs proof to satisfy his personal code before he can exact his revenge. Steve Cochran and Raymond Massey play Brant and Will Marlow, respectively (Zon Murray appears uncredited as the third).The Marlows have setup shop in and around the growing, relatively new titled Texas city. Will has established himself as the town's banker while his brothers and their henchman rustle cattle to prevent Will's clients from being able to pay their mortgages, so that Will can then seize their lands. One such family that's falling prey to Marlow's land grab scheme is the Robles: patriarch Don Felipe (Antonio Moreno), his lovely daughter Tonia (Ruth Roman), and son Luis (Gil Donaldson), who'd been shot and injured by Brant, the brother that 'respectable' Will can barely keep under 'control'.The story actually begins in retiring Marshal Wild Bill Hickok's (Reed Hadley) town, where the lawman come actor stages a shootout with his 'friend' Hollister in which he pretends to kill him, enabling the rebel to assume another identity in order to freely pursue those that killed his kin. Lucky for Hollister, an eastern dandy named Martin Weatherby (Leif Erickson) had just arrived on the stagecoach from Boston to become Dallas's U.S. Marshal. Since the real Weatherby is hardly qualified for the job at hand, he allows Hollister to pretend to be him for a time, which causes complications when it inadvertently begins a love triangle with his fiancée Tonia.Several chase sequences on horseback and requisite shootouts are included in the action, but there's no real drama nor question as to whether Cooper's character will get his man/men and the girl. The showdown between Hollister and Brant is ludicrous enough - he uses a cat to force the killer to reveal himself - but the final showdown is exceedingly tedious: in a darkened fireplace lit room, Hollister throws objects, taunts and counts bullets while Will fires wildly until he's out whereupon he rushes the pre-locked door so the two can wrestle until (guess who) prevails.Barbara Payton plays Brant's girlfriend Flo, who's not only frustrated with having to live in a dusty remote hideout with a bunch of bandits but also with the lack of brain power her man exhibits when he enables the captured Cooper-Weatherby character to talk his way into an escape. Jerome Cowan plays a townsman Matt Coulter and Will Wright appears uncredited as Dallas Judge Harper.

Stylized Hollywood Westerns, full of familiar conventions, seem to have eternal life and this is an avatar. Everything in it seems to have been scraped out of the back of a drawer from 1939, a larger budget applied, and this production its issue.Gary Cooper has played this sort of role dozens of times -- the displaced Southerner, fast on the draw and firm with honor, though kinda easy going whenever possible. He plays Blayde Hollister who travels to Texas looking for the gang who destroyed his cotton plantation. He wears a buckskin-fringed shirt and packs two ivory-handled six shooters. He speaks with a countrified accent -- "A feller could get hurt doin' this." (Cf., "Sergeant York.") The gang is led by sneering Raymond Massey, who buys and sells land, usually by underhanded means whenever possible. The gang includes Steve Cochran, who cannot play a Westerner though he's very good at scum bags in general. The requisite woman is Ruth Roman, daughter of the Mexican plantation owner, who looks and speaks about as Mexican as a Boston brown betty.I don't think I'll bother too much with the plot. No doubt someone has gone into it in some detail and it's not worth much more mention. As in any 1939 Western, it's labyrinthine. Everyone except Cooper and his friends are underhanded and there are multiple double crosses and switched identities and hidden secrets.Everything is retro. The plot, the dialog, the wardrobe, even the music. The score is by Warner's stalwart Max Steiner. He's the guy that scored "King Kong." That was 1932. This movie was released in 1950.Cooper's name, by the way -- "Blayde Hollister" -- prompted me to look through the records of the RACA -- the Real American Cowboy Associaton -- to see if that name cropped up in their archives, which date from the beginning of time to February 4th, 1911, when the last Real Cowboy passed away due to an unfortunate encounter with a deranged peccary. There has never been a Real Cowboy with the name Blayde. Hollister, yes, but not Blayde. As a matter of fact, there is no record of any Real Cowboy named Wade, Luke, Cole, or Matt either. The most popular names for genuine cowboys, in descending order of frequency, were Clarence, Mortimer, Noble, Nebukadnezzar, Plautus, Pinchbeck, and Hortense.If this movie had been released in 1939, it would have been routine. In 1950, it is a calamitous monument in the history of human recycling.

I fail to comprehend these other mediocre reviews. If you like Gary Cooper, this is one of his best roles. His gentle intensity to right a wrong is what made his career. "Blayde Hollister" comes to Dallas to take revenge against Will and Brian Malowe, who burned his Georgia farm and killed his family. An inept Marshall arriving from Boston gets in Hollister's way, attempting to arrest him when interrupted by a street shootout between Hollister and Wild Bill Hickock. The shootout is staged to get the law off Hollister, & he takes the "back East" Marshall under his wing to keep him alive in Texas, as they switch identity. That was a great beginning, and the picture holds up all the way through. Will Marlowe has positioned himself in Dallas to run for mayor, while his men steal cattle to force foreclosure on the Robles ranch. Brian Marlow, the younger brother, is a loose cannon that keeps getting in the way. Hollister consistently makes a fool out of him, and eventually tosses a black cat across his path, which was truly bad luck.Action may be a little "slow" by today's standards, but it is one of my top 10 favorite movies."That's your last bullet, Will."

This is one of the most ridiculous westerns that Hollywood ever made. Gary Cooper plays 'Reb Hollister', a former confederate officer wanted by the law. He meets up with a moron named Weatherby, played by Leif Erickson, who is a U.S. Marshal with no knowledge of firearms. Weatherby is on his way to Dallas to see his fiancee, Tonia Robles, played by Ruth Roman. Senor Robles, Tonia's father, has plenty of men, but they can't seem to be able to keep an eye on his cattle, which are regularly rustled by the Marlow brothers. Will Marlow, played by Raymond Massey, has financed the loan on the Robles estate, making things completely absurd. He even has the power to call for mortgage payments before they're due, simply because he feels like it.Since Weatherby is a Boston boy who can't fight, since he only became a Marshal so he could visit his fiancee, Tonia, (Just another instance of more plot nonsense. Are we to assume that you only have to pass a written test to get this job? Wait a minute, this guy couldn't pass the written test either.) he switches identities with Reb Hollister, who of course is an expert gunman. Reb takes the liberty of greeting Weatherby's girl with a passionate kiss, while Weatherby looks on like an idiot. Gary Cooper, Hollywood's number one stud, is in fine form here as Reb. Before the movie's done, not only does he take Weatherby's job, he steals his fiancee also, and Ruth Roman as Tonia, falls for him so hard and so fast that she gives chump Leif Erickson the brush-off before the films little more than half over.There isn't a shred of plot credibility in the whole film, so despite the good cast and lush photography, the film is a dud. And Cooper's character is a complete heel to boot. The film also stars Barbara Payton as Brant Marlow's girl, a beautiful and talented actress who squandered away her chances, unfortunately, by making too many headlines for the wrong reasons. I strongly suggest you pass this one up.