Let's be realistic.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Confederate special ops are sent to the Gold Country in Nevada to rob a gold shipment and then take the gold to Confederate Texas. After killing everyone, they find out that the war was over a month ago and now they are nothing more than robbers and killers. That description fits Lee Marvin's part fairly well, as when confronted by the leader of the squad played by Randolph Scott about killing the guy who was supposed to be helping them escape, Marvin answers that that's what they've been doing through the whole war. Chased by a posse of guys who are far worse than they are, they hijack a stage coach with young Donna Reed who plays a nurse, and her coach mate played by Richard Denning. The posse is led more or less by Ray Teal in another one of his classic cutthroat roles (see him in Along The Great Divide). The posse's problem is that there is no honor amongst thieves and their greed as much as other factors gets the better of them, but not before several tense scenes unfold in the way station where Scott and his men are holed up with Reed, Denning, and the father and daughter (who have their own issues) who run the place. Gold subverts just about every one in the movie, especially the cold opportunist played by Denning. That Confederate genteelness that you hear so much about in 50's westerns seems to contrast well with the greed and violence that seems about to erupt. It really doesn't extend much to Marvin's part who gets carried away with Donna Reed's good looks as he has her up against the fireplace, provoking a great fist-fight scene with southern gentleman Scott. Though the script doesn't always stand out and at times is a distraction, (maybe the story itself has some problems) this is still a western worth watching for a lot of reasons.

Major Matt Stewart, CSA, (Randolph Scott) and his men have a problem. It's Nevada, 1865, and they've just shot down a group of Union soldiers and taken $50,000 worth of gold. Their orders were do to just this, and to get the gold back to the Confederacy. The problem is that the war ended a few weeks ago and they didn't know it. No one will believe their story if they turn themselves in, not with ten or so Union corpses on the ground. They decide to keep the gold and attempt to make their way back home. This isn't going to be easy. Stewart and his men wind up in an isolated stage relay station, pinned down by a gang of murderous drifters. With Stewart and his men are Molly Hull (Donna Reed) and Lee Kemper (Richard Denning), who'd been passengers on a stage. Molly had been a Union nurse and is a fine looking woman. Kemper says he's her fiancée, but we suspect that he's just a smooth operator, probably with cowardly tendencies. And there's the couple who run the station, an old man and his daughter-in-law, a woman whose husband and son were killed fighting for the Union. Then there's the matter of Stewart's men. Most are reasonably good guys, including Cass Browne (Frank Faylen), a matter-of-fact realist with a sense of irony, and Jamie Groves (Claude Jarman, Jr.), the obligatory young kid who has to learn to become a man. There's also Rolph Bainter (Lee Marvin) as, what else if Marvin plays him, a mouth-breathing bully with a fondness for killing. "What's happened to you? Is it that easy to kill a man?" Major Stewart asks Bainter just after Bainter guns down a minor player. "Well, isn't it?" says Bainter with a shrug. Hangman's Knot starts with a rousing action sequence that includes the attack on the gold escort, the tense appearance of the drifters' gang, the stagecoach chase and the first attack on the stage station. It concludes with a violent resolution that involves fire and rain, with lighting and betrayal all mixing it up with a lot of death. Some critics have said that the middle of Hangman's Knot, when everyone except the drifters is holed up in the small, two- room station, is slow going. I don't think so. It's just that the middle doesn't have any galloping. What the middle section has is tense character development. We get to know who the people are and see the dynamics of their relationships change, thanks to a shrewd screenplay. I don't want to make too much of this but in the hands of actors like Jeanette Nolan, Frank Faylen, Glenn Langan and Richard Denning Hangman's Knott turns into a pleasant way to spend 81 minutes. While it may not be an A movie, it certainly isn't a B movie, perhaps a strong B-plus. And it's Randolph Scott who makes the difference. He had long ago established himself as a major star. Like Joel McCrea, he liked the outdoors and had enough money and smarts to make the movies he wanted to make, namely Westerns. Most of the movies he made in the Fifties he also produced. Scott was a big guy who aged well and stayed lean. There never was any doubt which side of honor Scott's characters came down on. Watching Randolph Scott handle Lee Marvin is an interesting lesson in star charisma. In this movie, Marvin is modestly billed but has an important role. Five years later in Seven Men From Now, Marvin is billed third and the movie essentially is about the two of them. Marvin is still the sneering bully who likes to prod the weak. In both movies, Marvin is such a strong presence with his own brand of charisma and vivid unlikablity that not too many star actors could have stood up to him. Scott was 26 years older than Marvin and looks it. Yet it is Scott, in my opinion, who dominates. Marvin steals no scenes he shares with Scott. That, in my view, speaks to Scott's genuine star power. In the movies, assuming the actors are both capable, lip-smacking evil will almost always dominate earnest good. Just look at how Walter Huston stole the show from Edward Arnold in The Devil & Daniel Webster. It takes a rare actor who plays good to dominate another capable actor playing bad. Not many actors had Lee Marvin playing second fiddle. Scott did it twice.

This film showcases the legal problems that occur in the transformation from war to peace. This was made more difficult in the days before rapid communications over long distances. Thus, the most important battle in the War of 1812 was fought some time after the peace treaty was signed. In the present case, we also have the problem of determining exactly when the Confederacy ceased to exist. Lee's surrender of his army did not constitute an official end to the Confederacy. In fact, another army surrendered several weeks later. There was no general peace treaty. Of course, Major Stewart(Randy) only knew what a dying Union commander told him: that the Confederacy was dead. Thus, he and his follow Confederate raiders had to decide what was the likely best thing for them to do with the gold they had just stolen from a Union cavalry detachment in this Nevada wasteland. They were afraid they would be hung either as Confederate spies or as civilian thieves if they turned the gold over to local authorities. This was made much more likely by the fact that they had killed the cavalry escorting the gold shipment. Thus, they decided to keep the gold until they decided for sure to split it. The raiders returned to their base camp and piled into their stolen buggy, leaving their horses behind(why?). Later, they are met by a group of horsemen who identify themselves as a posse looking for the gold thieves. Randy tells them a story that makes them travel in the opposite direction, but he knows they will be back after they find out this is a lie. The raiders then ditch their buggy and stop a stage, which they all fit into or onto. They convert the next way station into a fortress, with the posse in hot pursuit. There are 2 hostages from the stage: ex-union army nurse Molly(Donna Reed)and her semi-fiancé, as well as the elderly station caretakers. Randy tries to convince the posse that they left the gold elsewhere , but they don't buy it. The raiders make an escape attempt that night, but only succeed in rescuing a raider captive. He tells them the men outside are no posse, rather a gang of drifters. Meanwhile, the raiders and hostages are getting to know each other better, Molly's nursing skills being put to good use. Molly gradually warms up to Randy, as we expect, after she sees how he handles various sticky situations. Ralph(Lee Marvin) is jealous and tries to shoot Randy, after they have quite a brawl, but brother Jamie shoots Ralph first.The outlaw gang now tries to tunnel under the building, then set fire to it. As burning roof beams fall, Molly's fiancé runs out, but is shot by the outlaws. Luckily, a rare severe storm then strikes, putting out the fire and providing some cover for the raiders, who exit the building and kill or confuse some of the outlaws, while other outlaws look for the gold inside. Satisfied there is no gold, the remaining outlaws ride off to look for it elsewhere(presumably somewhere near the abandoned buggy). The now 2 remaining raiders(Randy and Jamie) make peace with the remaining hostages and promise to return after a cooling off period in former Confederate territory.We're left wondering what happened to the gold, since Randy and Jamie decided to leave it with the hostages. They are characterized as honest folk, thus most likely turned it over to authorities, explaining that the thieves had all been killed in a shootout between two gangs or by themselves.This is an excellent intense western drama, quite in keeping with the later series of Scott-staring westerns directed by Boetticher. The one positive thing that came out of this fiasco was that Molly came to realize that Randy, not her handsome urbane semi-fiancé, was the right man for her, provided he did the right thing and left the gold for her and the station attendants to dispose of honorably. However, as typically, the budding romance is left in an uncertain state at ending. In additional to the interesting screenplay, the crisp Technicolor cinematography of the unique giant boulder-strewn Alabama Hills, with snow-capped High Sierras in the background, makes for a spectacular-looking physical setting.Anyone who has seen "The Yearling" will instantly recognize an older Claude Jarman, as Scott's young friend, Jamie.... Perennial 'old codger' Clem Bevans, also in "The Yearling", serves as the stage station master...Familiar-looking Ray Teal, playing the leader of the bandits, meets a fate similar to that of Bruce Dern, in "The Cowboys", although clearly a dummy was used in the dark rainy conditions....Lee Marvin plays his typical sneering bully or cynic character....Handsome Richard Denning as Donna's dandy semi-fiancé saves the situation, if not his life, by correctly predicting a violent thunderstorm will soon strike. The long rain-soaking sequence, shot in near darkness, is unique in westerns that I have seen.If you've seen "Virginia City"(1940), with Scott and Flynn costarring, you will recognize a basically similar plot.

Here's a solid little Randolph Scott number with a fine supporting cast taking place only a few weeks after the Civil War has ended. That's unknown to Major Matt Stewart (Scott), and his band of Rebels at the time they hijack a quarter million dollar gold shipment from a band of Union soldiers. Attempting to outrun the authorities that are soon to follow, they find themselves holed up at a way station with two stagecoach travelers who were on board when the Rebs sought cover for their getaway.Lee Marvin gets a fair amount of screen time as the Major's trigger happy, hot headed second, and the story offers a number of scenes where the two collide verbally and physically. It was somewhat of a breakout role for Marvin, who prior had mainly uncredited film parts and a few TV series appearances. The expected final confrontation between the pair however is interrupted by the young soldier Jamie (Claude Jarman Jr.) watching his commanding officer's back. It was somewhat of a twist to the story for this viewer, as all the while, the film kept making it a point that the young man had never killed anyone before, not even during the war. It brought full circle to a remark the Major made to him early in their story that before they got back home, Jamie would have to find a way to become a man.I guess I'm not used to seeing someone like Donna Reed in a Western, so her appearance took some getting used to. I can't say I was fully convinced with her character falling in love with the Major, considering the circumstances of their involvement with the Rebels, and even more so, the palpable difference in their ages. It didn't hurt that her traveling companion and self professed fiancée (Richard Denning) was such a lout, thereby setting up the comparison between himself and Scott's character.The near finale with the Major against the leader of the outlaw posse (Ray Teal) was somewhat original in it's execution and outcome. Oddly staged, it was surprisingly believable that the villain could be hauled away, stuck in his horse's stirrup. Thinking about it, I wondered how far the horse might have run and what the fate of Teal's character Quincey might have been. Would he have been dragged to death, fallen loose, or left to some other fate? Curious to ponder if nothing else.Ultimately, the Major vindicates himself in his sweetheart's eyes when he and his partner Jamie drop their saddlebags of gold bars. You kind of wondered what would happen with all that gold, and in some measure, I still do. Left with the station agent and his daughter in law, there wasn't much in the neighborhood they could do with it all.