Just what I expected

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I really wanted to like this Western. It had a promising start. I expected good results from Rory Calhoun who starred in and co-produced the movie along with an experienced director of Westerns and a good cast of actors. But the movie became laughable due to (1) the script and direction which was loaded with incredible coincidences and lucky encounters, everything is telegraphed in the previous scene; and (2) poorly filmed shoot-outs where the hero should have been killed many times over. It had a good ending, though.***Spoilers***. The story: while Calhoun is fighting in the Civil War, five bad guys kill his family. Calhoun knows who four of them are, but not the 5th. He kills the four one-by-one in a man-to-man duel instead of just shooting them on sight. It is also unbelievable that he can't get the name of the 5th man from any of the four.After killing the 4th man, Calhoun heads home. By coincidence his girl visits his deserted home with her oily new "boyfriend" who is intent on acquiring the home. He tells her that Calhoun likely was recently killed (because left wounded in bad terrain!), and then he departs. The girl mopes inside Calhoun's neat deserted home, and mops, but lo and behold, Calhoun is inside. She tells Calhoun that most of the town is against him since he became a gunfighter tracking down those who had killed his family. Lo and behold, in the next scene Calhoun is in town getting the cold shoulder from most of the townsfolk (why?). Calhoun needs a loan from the local banker, who lo and behold, is the one pursuing his girl and who wants his land.Calhoun knocks out a boorish saloon masher and has his Mexican friend drag the masher outside. The masher and his friends start to torture the Mexican in the mistaken belief that the Mexican (not Calhoun) knocked out the masher, but incredibly the Mexican doesn't say that he only dragged the guy out to the street! Then --most incredible of all-- the masher turns out to be the 5th man Calhoun was looking for, and for no good reason he starts a shoot-out with Calhoun! Why? Calhoun would have no idea who was the 5th man! The masher did not know that the Mexican would tell Calhoun.

Rory Calhoun stars in the title role as the Domino Kid who came back from the Civil War to find his father killed. Calhoun's a pretty fast gun so after he's identified four of the five perpetrators and successfully killed them all, he's headed home to try and reclaim his ranch. Both his ranch and his woman Kristine Miller are coveted by entrepreneur Andrew Duggan. Always Calhoun has on his mind the unknown fifth man who is more than likely hunting him.Domino Kid combines a lot of good action and for the short running time of 74 minutes gets a lot of plot involved as well. Calhoun's a man who'd like to change for the better, but knows full well if he gets a line on the fifth man he's off to the hunt. As for the fifth man with such veterans of screen villainy like James Griffith, Roy Barcroft, Peter Whitney and even Duggan who knows who this fifth man is. In fact we don't find out until the film is almost over.Western fans all over will love the Domino Kid. The film hasn't aged a bit since 1957.

The Domino Kid is directed by Ray Nazarro and written by Kenneth Gammet and Hal Biller. It stars Rory Calhoun, Kristine Miller, Andrew Duggan, Yvette Dugay, Peter Whitney and Eugene Iglesias. Music is by Mischa Bakaleinikoff and cinematography by Irving Lipman.Rory Calhoun is The Domino Kid (AKA: Cort Garand), who upon returning from his service in the Civil War sets out for vengeance against the five renegades who murdered his father. He quickly locates four of them, but the fifth man is proving illusive. The script is a bit hoary, the formula unchallenging, and the very grand final shoot-out is as full of implausibilities as can be, but there's a good suspense quotient to this Oater that is most engaging. It also looks gorgeous, with the crisp black and white photography putting a tonally correct moody vibe on the story. Calhoun is a bastion of cool and hardness, quick on the draw and lobbing dominoes around to announce to his prey that they are up against a bad mutha. The requisite entanglements with cattle baron villain Wade Harrington (Duggan) and affairs of the heart are driven straight and simple, and the "twist" isn't really all that, yet this is well worth a look for Calhoun and B Western supporters. 7/10

If you're a die-hard Westerns fan (which I am), you'll manage to get through this one -- but you'll hate yourself in the morning.Rory Calhoun spends a few weeks tracking down his father's killers, taking a bullet in the shoulder during one shoot out, until he finally goes back to his old homestead to settle down with his gorgeous former sweetheart.And he never changes clothes once through the whole film. The bullet hole in his favorite shirt heals up as fast as his chest wound. Nice trick, huh?Hokey dialog flies thicker than the bullets, and Calhoun is as wooden as a hitching post. If you make it to the final shoot out, you'll get to watch the worst shots in the West manage to miss each other so often they run out of bullets.Calhoun finally takes a few slugs, but he still manages to crawl -- yes, crawl -- across an open street, straight toward the bad guy, who misses him repeatedly with a RIFLE from twenty feet away!When Calhoun's sweetheart and the town doc (sci-fi veteran Thomas Brown Henry in his smallest role), examines the wounded Calhoun, he says, "He'll be alright as soon as I get all those holes plugged up."What a man! What a movie . . .