Too much of everything

Pretty Good

Great Film overall

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Quite often us Western fans will see the cast list of an old 1950s Western and reasonably expect it to at the very least be a time waster. So instantly we (yes it's the Royal we) notice that Sterling Hayden and Lee Van Cleef star in it, and Ted de Corsia on villain duties as well, and feel quite confident. While when you got a title proudly promising a gun battle it's not outrageous to expect maybe just a little bit of bang bang bangery.That Carl K. Hittlemen's film doesn't deliver any goods is not really his fault, he's a director for hire working with a lazy screenplay and a cast who know it's a lazy screenplay! Cleef escapes criticism, but it's really not a badge of honour to shine in this sea of mediocrity, but he at least makes time spent with the pic tolerable: Just! Come the hopelessly weak finale you are unlikely to care or consider this as being worth another look in some alternate future. Key word is lazy, so this is an appropriately lazy review. 3/10

Hayden made a number of cheap Westerns at a time (late '50's) when Drive-in's were a booming business and in need of fare. Unfortunately, none are very good, including this one, though a number of talented people were involved in each. As could be expected, most suffered from poor production values and sub-standard scripts, leaving the talent little to work with. That's very much the case here. As others point out, only Van Cleef looks motivated. And too bad that great bad girl Mary Beth Hughes (Cleo) is not given more to work with. No need to repeat negative points made by others, except for two observations. Note that the film has two directors listed. According to IMDb, this was Franklin's only directorial effort, which suggests producer Hittleman didn't like what he saw and so took over the directing himself. Thus the film lacks an experienced director's hand. Also, the ending is indeed startling for a picture of this type. It's so abrupt and unexpected, it's almost like the company suddenly ran out of film and had to wrap up immediately. Certainly, nothing else in the production shows the kind of imagination or nerve that would produce such a startling break with convention. Too bad this remains the only good reason to stick around for this surf-to-turf oater.

You know that a western—or any movie for that matter—is in trouble when its title has nothing whatsoever to do with its storyline. "Gun Battle at Monterey" qualifies as an uneven, below-average oater about revenge that never delivers its titular fireworks. Ostensibly, this low-budget, black & white, Allied Artists' western turns out to be a lesson in good citizenship. You see, the hero changes his mind in the end about the fate of a two-timing outlaw because his pretty girlfriend persuades him not to sink to the outlaw's level. Not only is "Gun Battle at Monterey" unconvincing in its reversal ending, but also co-directors Sidney Franklin, Jr., and Carl K. Hittleman of the abysmal "Kentucky Rifle" leave out important scenes that would have bolstered the quality of their western. Sterling Hayden, Ted de Corsia, and Lee Van Cleef deserved a better script than the one that Jack ("The Narrow Margin") Leonard and TV western scribe Lawrence Resner contrived.This lackluster western opens with bearded Max Reno (Ted de Corsia of "Captain Pirate") and Jay Turner (Sterling Hayden of "Top Gun") riding off the beaten trail down onto the beach at Monterey to hide out in a cave with the loot that they have stolen from the Monterey Express Company. Incredibly, we never learn how much they hauled off from the hold-up. Reno boasts about his foresight in having found the cave a month before the robbery. Nevertheless, Jay isn't impressed by Reno. According to the Leonard & Resner screenplay, Max met a penniless Turner in Monterey and offered him $5-thousand dollars to help him rob the express company. Early on directors Franklin and Hittleman establish Jay as a decent sort of fellow who strayed onto the wrong side of the law through circumstances not entirely of his own making. When Jay demands his money and refuses later to stick on as Max's partner, Max puts three bullets in his back. Jay plunges into the ocean and washes up on the beach long after Max has hightailed it with the loot to greater pastures. A Mexican girl, Maria Salvador (seasoned television actress Pamela Duncan), takes pity on poor bullet-riddled Jay and nurses him back to health despite her father's fears about Jay. Meanwhile, Monterey authorities find Jay's vest with two bullet holes in it on the beach (yes, the two bullet holes don't match the three shots fired) and they add murder to Max's robbery charge.Four weeks or thereabouts elapse before Jay recuperates sufficiently to hit the trail after Max, and it takes our determined protagonist around a year to locate the double-crossing dastard. During that time, Max has done well for himself. He rides into Del Ray and wins ownership of a saloon when its proprietor, Abbot (Fred Sherman of "The Left-Handed Gun"),cannot pay off his gambling losses. Reluctantly, Abbot agrees to take Max on as a partner, but they quarrel over importing dancehall girls. Abbot complains that he won't lower his standards. Abbot's right-hand gunman, Kirby (Lee Van Cleef of "Barquero"), stands by and watches Max badger Abbot into a gunfight. The town sheriff Claude Mundy (Charles Cane of "No Name on a Bullet") accepts Max's plea that he shot Abbot down in self-defense. By the time that Jay rides into Del Ray masquerading as somebody else entirely, Max has the town in his hip pocket. Max is initially suspicious when Jay appears and takes sides with the downtrodden citizens, especially a crusading journalist that Kirby had earlier beaten up. Max sends one of his girls, Cleo (Mary Beth Hughes of "Design for Scandal"), to see if she can root the truth out about Jay. Eventually, Jay beats up Kirby and throws him in the hoosegow. The honest citizens of Del Ray hire him as their deputy sheriff but are shocked when he refuses to let them lynch Max. Instead, Jay takes Max back to Monterey to pick up the reward on him, and watch him hang for his murder. Nobody ever got a solid description of Jay during the robbery so he can ride confidently into town and turn Max over to law without any worry. The interval between the time that they leave Del Ray and reach Monterey is a pre-journey of hardship in the tradition of Sergio Leone's later "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Finally, once Jay has turned in Max, he rides back to Maria. She convinces him that he is doing the wrong thing, so he goes back to town and gives himself up. Maria assured him that she would wait for him. Max roars with laughter at Jay's decision to turn himself in and forgives him for his deception. Angrily, Jay punches out Max and the movie ends."Gun Battle at Monterey" suffers from the use of obvious back projection that undercuts a romantic scene on the beach between Jay and Maria. Presumably, the thunderous sounds of the tide crashing on the shore must have drowned out every attempt to record the dialogue on the location, so the filmmakers repaired to the quiet confines of the studio. When Franklin and Hittleman venture out onto the actual desert or beach locations, this oater looks both scenic and rugged. Unfortunately, the villains aren't much of a challenge as Jay gets all too easily out of a scrape with two gunman who have him digging his own grave. This otherwise disposable 69-minute western earns some points for its scenes along the Monterey beach that anticipated similar scenes in Marlon Brando's later revenge western "One-Eyed Jacks." Lee Van Cleef gives a persuasively pugnacious performance as Max's right-hand gunman, while Ted de Corsia is given enough evil things to do to qualify as a thorough-going villain.

Don't watch this. Honest, you'll be bored.I saw it because the description of the plot on my guide grabbed me by the lapels and shook me awake. Something like, "A thief is shot by his partner who runs off with the loot. Saved by a Mexican girl, he sets out for revenge." "Gun Battle in Monterey"? It sounded like "One-Eyed Jacks." But it's not. "One-Eyed Jacks" may have had its longeurs but they were nothing compared to this one, a standard-typical Western into which no one involved seems to have put the least effort.Yes, Sterling Hayden is betrayed and left for dead by his cowardly partner, Ted DeCorsia, and plots revenge but is saved by the moralistic preaching of his Mexican girlfriend. That's about where the similarity ends.Hayden must have done this for the money. He was an actor of limited range but no one ever asked him to deliver very much except Stanley Kubrick. Hayden brought a touch of real pathos to the role of the delusional General Jack D. Ripper in "Doctor Strangelove." Here he doesn't give an inch. He was a much better writer and sailor than a Western hero. Ted DeCorsia is simply Ted DeCorsia, more of a coward than a sadist. The women are perfunctory. Possibly the best performance is given by Lee Van Cleef, a really shifty looking heavy with a strong baritone. The script also gives him one or two lines suggesting he's human a little as well as feral a lot.The supporting players, aside from Byron Fulger who should know better, are sadly unendowed with talent. Not a believable line from any of them. And the director adds absolutely nothing to the Grade-B shenanigans we see on the screen.This could have been a John Wayne western from Poverty Row in 1935. One of those masterpieces where Wayne rides full tilt after the stagecoach along a dusty road lined with telephone poles, past parked trucks. The budget for this movie must have been nearly non-existent and the shooting schedule, I would guess, ran somewhere around 2 hours and 13 minutes.Pathetic.