Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Am I Missing Something?

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"The Forty-Niners" turned out to be "Wild Bill" Elliot's final western. His series was one of the last, if not the last, of the "B" series westerns. TV had come to town.The film begins with Ernie Walker (John Doucette) and Bill Norris (Lane Bradford) ambushing and killing a federal marshal. Mine owner Everett (I. Sanford Jolley) is brought in and charged with the murder. He reveals that he had hired the killers but cannot remember their names. He does recall however, the name of the man who arranged for him to meet the killers - Alf Billings. Marshal Sam Nelson (Elliot) is assigned to track down Billings (Harry Morgan) and learn the identity of the killers.Nelson runs into Billings in a saloon poker game where he is caught cheating by gambler Harry Lauter. Nelson rescues Billings and the two flee. Over the course of their fireside chat, Billing proposes that the two work together to clean up in poker games. Nelson agrees so that he can keep Billings under surveillance.As luck would have it, after arriving in the gold miner town of Coldwater, Billings spots Walker who has become the prosperous saloon owner. Billings blackmails Walker into a partnership by writing a letter detailing Walker and Norris' crimes and hiding it. Norris meanwhile has become the town sheriff and has a confrontation with Nelson. Nelson begins to suspect Walker and Norris as the killers.In an effort to obtain the incriminating letter, Walker conspires with his wife Stella (Virginia Grey) to play up to Billings with whom she had a previous relationship. Billings gets her to admit the plot by promising to "take her away from all this". A letter written by Nelson to his superiors is intercepted by Norris and Nelson's identity is revealed.Walker and Norris force Billings to try and kill Nelson. Nelson meets Billings at a deserted cabin but Billings is unable to kill Nelson and proposes that the two work together to which Nelson reluctantly agrees. On the way back to town Billings meets Norris, the two fight, Billings is wounded and.............................................For his final western Elliot didn't disappoint his fans. He had a better than usual supporting cast, a good story and enough action to satisfy his fans."Wild Bill" Elliot's western career began in earnest with "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickcok" a 1938 serial followed by a five year career at Columbia and a further period with Republic Pictures where he starred in a number of their "A" features. Elliott's Monogram/Allied Artists series was I thought, a cut above those of most of his contemporaries.."B" plus, if you will.Still and all, it was sad to see "Wild Bill" riding off into the sunset for one last time.

Elliott, a US Marshal, goes undercover to catch three killers. In the process, he befriends one of them, Morgan, and finds out his job is not as morally easy as he thought.I was expecting a matinée western with the usual formula plot and stock characters. But this is not a formula matinée. Two of the chief characters—Morgan and Bradford—are morally ambiguous. That is, they are as capable of high deeds as well as low, sort of like real people. Also, Morgan, I believe, has more screen time than ostensible hero Elliott. I'm not sure why, maybe because Elliott is a middle-age 50, and wants to slow down. Also, it's Morgan who attracts the good-looking woman, while Elliott is all business.I suspect the 70-minutes departs from the standard since it comes at the end of the matinée era. Instead, TV was taking over the cheap western. Anyway, the film is better than its lowly pedigree indicates, and can stand on its own as a slice of sagebrush entertainment. And, oh yes, shouldn't leave off without paying tribute to Wild Bill, this being his final western. He was one of the few matinée cowboys who could act tough and make you believe it. I think it was the narrow eyes and resonant voice. Anyway, he sure gave me a lot of entertainment over the years. Good luck, Bill, wherever you are-- you went out on a pretty good little western.

Wild Bill Elliott stars in one of his last westerns for Allied Artists -- basically Monogram with a budget -- in this story about a marshal hunting for someone who is killing miners for their claims during the California Gold Rush.The story is compressed a bit by having Elliott narrate the beginning of the story. However, with his low-affect acting style and the overly full writing of the narration, it comes off like a long episode of TV's DRAGNET on horseback. Add in Harry Morgan, who spent the end of the 1960s as the second lead on the current version of the show -- well, from this distance it looks like a burlesque of Jack Webb's. In reality, it was probably simply an attempt to add some up-to-date techniques to the oldest film genre.It didn't work. Elliott would retire from the cowboy B movies -- he would switch to mysteries -- and the B westerns themselves would migrate to the television screen and then would die. The mythology of the West was no longer the myth of the country. Science Fiction was already moving in.

That peaceable man, Wild Bill Elliott appears in one of his final films as a Marshal in the wild and wooly west. He is ably supported here by co-stars Harry Morgan and John Doucette.Elliott was one of the most popular of the western movie stars, playing Red Ryder and Wild Bill in several series of westerns.This one was not his best, but it is very entertaining and will more than satisfy his legion of fans. Harry Morgan does an admirable job in an interesting, atypical role.Elliott's western film career lasted longer than others, and in this one we see the action, suspense and moral values that are sorely lacking in today's films ...... Enjoy !