Pretty Good

Nice effects though.

Just perfect...

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This is an enjoyable and underrated Western, but one aspect of it is particularly enjoyable and particularly underrated: the magnificent cinematography.Edwin DuPar's cinematography is excellent in every respect: the framing, the colour, the texture, the lighting and the location filming. He should have been nominated for an Oscar for it, which may have led to his filming top movies. Instead, he wasn't nominated, and he spent virtually his entire career in B movies and TV episodes - a sad loss to A movies.The film is underrated generally. Disgracefully, it doesn't even get a single star in Halliwell's Film Guide - it should have had at least one for the cinematography alone! Equally disgracefully, Edwin DuPar doesn't even get a mention in Halliwell's Who's Who in Films (at least, not in my edition).The cast of 'Springfield Rifle' is very good, the action scenes effective, and the plot works well, by and large. Well worth watching.

Depending on what reviews you read of course, Springfield Rifle is either a slowly paced pot boiler or an action packed suspenser. Such is the diversity of this form of the arts, you could easily favour one or the other and nobody could really argue with you. The truth is that André De Toth's film wants to be both, but with an almost dizzying plot and a misleading title, it winds up being an over ambitious picture that doesn't quite pay off on its promise.Gary Cooper stars as Maj. Alex 'Lex' Kearney who gets himself cashiered from the army on a charge of cowardice in order to go undercover to break up a Confederate ring who are stealing horses during the civil war. But Kearney is not the only spy at work so his mission is a touch more complicated than at first thought. Not only that but he is so deep undercover his wife and son believe him to be a real coward and have therefore ostracised him. Oh and the new and war changing Springfield Rifle will have a part to play in the shenanigans.Released in the same year as Cooper was wowing genre fans in High Noon, De Toth's movie does actually feel like an attempt to cash in on the big mans star appeal. However, it should be noted that executives at Warner Brothers didn't want Cooper to play the role, fearing his wholesome image just wouldn't suit a role involving cowardice and double dallying for both parties in the war. De Toth stood by his guns and was rewarded, to my mind, by a film saving performance from Cooper. Frank Davis and Charles Marquis Warren adapt from a story written by Sloan Nibley (who is noted in the genre for his numerous work on Roy Rogers scripts), Max Steiner provides the score and Edwin B. DuPar photographs out of Lone Pine and Warner Ranch in California. The film is not shot in Technicolor {as stated by some reviewers}, it was shot in the Warnercolor process. With the result somewhat pleasing on the eye, notably the uniforms of the soldiers and the flame engulfed sequence towards the finale.The support cast are fair to middling. Lon Chaney Jr. is sadly a shadow of his former self, tho a good old dust up with Cooper raises the temperature. Phyllis Thaxter, David Brian, Paul Kelly & Philip Carey file in and say their lines. While Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams & Alan Hale Jr. deserved more screen time than they actually got. With surprises in the plot and Cooper adding some quality, Springfield Rifle is entertaining enough. But ultimately it ends up being a modest genre piece that really should have been much much better. 6/10

Quite enjoyable-as the others have said, it's an obvious answer movie to 'Winchester 73', while not as good-you still can't go wrong here. Check the cast-Gary Cooper, Martin Milner(!), the skipper on Gilligan(!), Clark Kent's Mom(!) and of course, the recently departed Phillip Carey-who not to speak ill of the departed, was sort of a block of wood here-but no matter. He did his routine stuff here okay too. Oh and Fess Parker shows up too as the 'I had you in my sights once Coop' reb.Thaxter had the token woman role, really doesn't have much to do, Cooper shows his years some but is sturdy, Paul Kelly is great as the Real Villain of the piece Col Hudson (see Spoiler Warning at start of review for more!), and of course there's the terrific scenery.The plot-well it has Cooper going under cover to stop some Reb horse-thieves who are trying to short-circuit Yankee war-efforts East. And there's an Inside Man(Kelly!) in league w/ Lon Cheney and co. gumming things up.This has all the great horse stunts, riding and shootouts you could ask for, to go w/ the familiar faces and great Big Sky vistas. Well worth your time.*** outta ****

1952 was a great year for westerns. Besides "High Noon" there was "Hangman's Knot", one of Randolph Scott's best, "Bend of the River", "Viva Zapata", "Rancho Notorious" and so many others. And there was "Springfield Rifle" with an unusual story about spying during the civil war. Cooper is Major Kearney, an officer for the Union, even though he was born in Virginia. He refuses to fight the enemy when they steal the horses they are taking, because they are outnumbered. He is dishonored and branded a coward. There is no end to his humiliation. As it turns out he is really a spy going undercover to find out who is the spy in the Union, responsible for stealing the horses and sending them to the Confederates. He does not tell his wife about it, so she ends up spoiling everything. He should have known better, you don't hide such a secret from your wife!!! The film also shows the Springfield Rifle, which had a new system for loading and gave a superiority to the men using it. This was one of the best westerns directed by De Toth.