So much average

Simply A Masterpiece

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An above-average Lyles Western that gently eases its ageing cast through an intriguing plot. Andrews is the marshal and Russell, as boisterous as ever, the owner of the gin palace he comes to visit. However, on his arrival with Drake, he discovers that law and order in Stone Junction is lynch law and that the town is ruled by Bettger. The film is well scripted - indeed this is the best screenplay of all Lyle's Westerns - and imaginatively directed by Springsteen, especially at the climax where a bunch of Indians all but tear down Stone Junction. This is a pleasant actioner.Phil Hardy

This movie already looked like an anachronism when it was released in 1966;the stars are aging actors such as Dana Andrews ,Jane Russell,John Agar ,Lon Chaney Jr ....;the score is awful and does not sound western at all;the last song is MOR pop.The screenplay is not devoid of interest:it deals with responsibility (French title:" the whole town is guilty");and more than Dana Andrews ' sheriff and his old flame Russell ,Joe Conners is the most interesting character:a very restrained performance whereas John Drake could have turned on melodrama.He is a true loser in a way that Johnny and Nona are not.His sentences in a low voice go straight to the heart: "why my brother?he never did any harm to anyone" "I wish I was never born" "I've never had a chance in life" .The ideal scapegoat,he is the true hero of the final showdown,facing alone the whole bunch of villains.

This film is poor even by the standards of an AC Lyles 'old geezer' western. Audiences back when this was released must have realised that it was bottom of the barrel schlock and laughed throughout. Anachronistic songs and music, old rheumatic actors in need of doubles, pathetic choreography; anyone seeing this in 1966 must have felt that they had gone through a timewarp and re-emerged in the 1950s.The highlight has to be the saloon fight between Dana Andrews and Lyle Bettger or, rather, the fight between their stunt doubles since the faces of the stuntmen are visible throughout and Bettger's has a different hair colour. I also laughed out loud when a rubber dummy was catapaulted into the air after an explosion and when a character was all smiles about 10 seconds after being told that her father was dead.RG Springsteen was a hack but had directed a relatively competent film (Bullet for a Badman) only a little while previously so it is not clear why, other than cheap budget and rushed shooting schedule, he is so slapdash here. Note also that Andrews' ride to Jane Russell's house is conveyed by using footage recycled from earlier in the film.

Paramount was the last major studio to jump into television production in the late 1960's. Studio founder Adolph Zukor was against TV from the start, treating it as the enemy, therefore they never made series for the networks like the other studios did. Sure, they would rent out space to shows like Bonanza, but they insisted on making only features, and had AC Lyles make a series of low-budget westerns with aging stars to fill out the second half of a double bill.Johnny Reno was the best of a bad lot, it's low budget origins more than obvious. Shot in Techniscope (cheaper than Panavision)and color, it has a surprisingly strong ending centered around racism and miscegenation.Others in the series like Town Tamer and Hostile Guns are downright unwatchable. Shortly after this, the studio changed ownership and installed Robert Evans as production chief and in a few short years Paramount TV was one of the top suppliers of network shows. No more movies like this one were made. Anyway, many years later Lyles redeemed himself in my eyes by being an executive consultant on the "Deadwood" series on HBO, one of the best western series ever made. Thanks, AC