Best movie of this year hands down!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

When a troubled stranger (Robert Mitchum) arrives in a western town looking for his estranged wife (Jan Sterling), he is made the sheriff to try and clean it up, finding out that his wife is involved in the local corruption. It all surrounds the one local theater (the "Palace" of course) where Sterling (dowdily dressed in an all black severe get-up and prim hairstyle) is obviously more than just the proprietor, possibly a madam as well. This film strikes interest when it deals with the human elements of Mitchum's strong but quiet surgeon, but it seems to have a different mood each of its characters, particularly Karen Sharpe's who sometimes brays her lines. Then, when an enormously fat man (Emile Meyer) shows up suddenly without a word, it is very predictable where the film is going. It is ironic to realize that Hollywood at this time viewed enormously large people either as comical or sinister, and there's no doubt to this one's character. The conflict between Mitchum and one villain in the Palace is the most memorable scene as Mitchum deals with the said villain in a most unique and unforgettable way.While this has the standard western look with sleepy town and dirt roads, the camera uses angles to traipse through it that gives it an interesting, almost 3D look. There are some particularly disturbing moments, such as one of the bad guys shooting a barking pup "just because. Henry Hull is excellent as the town's veteran lawman who can't handle the corruption. Early appearances by Angie Dickinson and Claude Akins will have you keeping a sharp eye out. That's "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?'s" Maisie Norman as Sterling's maid, not Juanita Moore ("Imitation of Life"), which I point out because I've confused them a few times too. I rank this among the psychological westerns influenced by "High Noon" that deserve repeat viewings to pick up Freudian references to many issues we still deal with today. The tense atmosphere keeps it engaging, and the interesting characters help it rise above the many other westerns which took on these themes.

This has an unusual element or two, well two actually. Robert Mitchum plays a 'town tamer' and the way things are played out we don't see the main bad guy till the very end. Mitchum is fine in a good solid performance as the aforementioned, 'town tamer' but nobody else really seems up to the task, either in the town to be tamed or on the celluloid before us. How Wilson managed to make 'the beautiful', Jan Sterling look so awful throughout is incredible but it is probably due to the fact she was told to play 'hard' and her features went that way. Shame because it completely undermines the storyline. The 'dancing girls' are pretty bad too and all in all it seems an opportunity to do something different with the western was lost.

Clint Tollinger arrives in a small western town looking for his estranged wife, who left him and now runs the local show saloon. His presence is greeting by suspicion but when the town leaders discover the nature of Tollinger's business they propose that they employ him to clean up the town of the problem of Dade Holman's violent influence. The solution may be just as bad as the problem but they take the risk.With a nice dark character with a lot of anger and pain in the front of the film this western is enjoyable tough. Although the plot is fairly typical of a western b-movie, the tone and edge to it means that it comes over as much more. The basic story sees Tollinger taking on the rule of Holman but it has undercurrents of pain and anger as the lead confronts his wife. We meet Tollinger as a gentle, quiet man but gradually we see him to be violent, heartless and full of bitterness; it is solid development that is at the heart of the film's dark tone. Of course it still follows the genre traditions and will appeal to fans of such while also having enough else going on to make it differ from the Technicolor westerns of the same period.Wilson is responsible for the dark tone as both writer and director; shot is stark black and white he frames some interesting shots and is not afraid to be aggressive or shocking considering the period. Mitchum takes to his character well and always seemed to enjoy the darker more complex characters that some of his westerns would serve him up with. Sterling does well with her firm character until near the end where she becomes more of a genre staple. Support behind these two is roundly good but the film is very much Mitchum's and he knows it.Overall it is a solid western that gradually gets down to just going where you expect it to. However for the vast majority it has a dark tone and feel to it that makes it much more interesting and more likely to appeal beyond the limitations of those that like the colourful b-movie westerns of the period.

there should be a sub-genre in the Western called 'the Robert Mitchum Western'. Mitchum's brilliant, idiosyncratic, usually undervalued Westerns import his film noir persona to etch some compellingly dark character sketches, and bring an elegiac world-weariness more familiar from the films of Sam Peckinpah. 'Man with the gun' is one of his best. Directed by Orson Welles protege Richard Wilson, it is a stark, monochrome beauty, full of chilling silhouettes and terrifying outbursts of savage violence, as Mitchum comes to tame a town terrorised by a monopolist with a private army. Mitchum's regression from soft-spoken stranger to deranged murderer, with a host of dark emotions in between, is a marvel of expressive, physical acting.