Excellent but underrated film

The acting in this movie is really good.

The acting in this movie is really good.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This black and white film is an exact remake of the 1953 oater, GUN BELT, starring George Montgomery, almost word for word and scene for scene. The main difference is that GUN BELT was in Technicolor. James Brown does a credible job as the protagonist and John Wilder tries hard to duplicate Tab Hunter's performance in his third movie. Character actor Willis Bouchey appeared in both versions.The story line is so faithful to GUN BELT, it even requires the two main characters, during a fight, to tumble into a pond. Many of the sets are precise duplicates. Frankly, it's difficult to understand what motivated the producers to turn out this mediocre mirror image.

This movie is a word for word remake of a 1953 movie called "The Gun Belt". Unfortunately, unlike wine, this one didn't improve with age...

A remake of the 1953 Western, Gun Belt (story by Arthur E. Orloff). Gun Belt was filmed in color and Five Guns to Tombstone is in black & white. Jim Brown gives a pretty good performance in the role of Billy Wade. I would guess Jim Brown is best known as Detective Harry McSween in the night time soap, Dallas. Jim had a great voice. These two films employ some of the same actors, Willis Bouchey, Red Morgan and Boyd Stockman. Also watch for Gregg Palmer as Mel Dixon in Five guns, Gregg was in a lot of John Wayne films. Gun Belt uses the character names, Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp, Ringo and Ike Clinton (a 'take' on Clanton). These characters don't show up in Five Guns to Tombstone, but the story comes off just as well without them. These films are both 'middle of the road', but entertaining. If I had to choose between the two films, I would pick Five Guns to Tombstone. Although the story is the same, 'Five Guns' seems to progress more smoothly.

Wow, this is not a very good movie. The story line is really lame. One character shows up in town after a bank holdup in which he was not involved - but one of the robbers said he was, so when he comes to town everyone is ready to hang him immediately based on the say-so of a robber who WAS there robbing the bank. Not very likely. And when Ike Garvey opens the strongboxes full of cash onto an uneven-surface rock, what was he thinking? I could just see the money falling off and all over the place. Worst of all perhaps, I had to feel sorry for the horses - 3/4 of the actors in this film were somewhere between chubby and downright obese. Ike Garvey (again), the main bad guy, was particularly huge - from the back he looked just like his horse. I think his gun belt was full of Tootsie Rolls where there normally would be bullets. Anyhow, I've actually seen worse Westerns, but offhand I can't think which one(s). This movie is really lukewarm; the only actor I liked at all was James Brown, who was the marshal in the movie Gun Street. He plays a pretty good 'perturbed by life' Western character. The rest of 'em can all go to Weight Watchers.