Instant Favorite.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Average inexpensive Western.Joel McCrae is Bat Masterson, saloon owner and now sheriff, newly elected to put an end to the cowboys who come to town on weekends to hoorah the place and frighten the dickens out of the good folk, like Doc John McIntire and Julie Adams, the purty preacher's daughter.It resembles so many other routine Westerns of the period that they're all jumbled together in my head so I think I'll skip the details of the plot. They're not important anyway. You'll have no trouble distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys after the first few minutes. This isn't the kind of movie that humanizes either the hero or his enemies. Ambiguity? Streng Verboten! As for that titular "shoot out", McCrae has just been "called out" by his evil rival for the sheriff's office. Julie Adams begs him not to go. "I don't want to go," he replies, "but I've got to. That's the difference between an animal and a man." Something like that anyhow. Maybe it was, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," or, "Some things a man can't ride around." He confesses to being scared but I don't know why. The two rivals walk towards each other down the dusty and deserted street. "You call it," one of them says. And BANG and you-know-who is lying on the ground. It's all over with in about two minutes.The real Bat Masterson had nothing to be afraid of. Maybe he didn't wind up with the breathtaking Julie Adams under the same blanket, which is too bad for him, but he did act, I think, as Time Keeper at some heavyweight championship boxing match, didn't he? I believe there is a photo of him at ringside. He's wearing a derby.Joel McCrae didn't do badly either. He made his exit after a splendid early Pekinpah movie and spent his adult life married to the estimable Frances Dee. He seemed like a nice guy too and deserved his decent career.

If this had been a black and white film, I probably would have rated it where I go with almost all of them, a solid 'six' and not much more. But you don't see many 'B' Westerns in color, hence the bump up a notch. That, and the main character named Bat Masterson, portrayed by the generally competent Joel McCrae in the lead role. The story plucks Bat from his buffalo hunter days and puts him directly into a situation challenging Dodge City sheriff Jim Regan (Don Haggerty). Standing up to bully Regan gets him elected handily, though it took the murder of Bat's brother Ed (Harry Lauter) to help push the story along.Masterson's legacy as a real life gambler is dealt with neatly in the story line. Arriving in Dodge City, Bat's described as a dealer of black-jack with three fingers - thumb, index and trigger. Later, when asked if he's giving up his half interest in the Lady Gay Saloon after being elected sheriff, he declines citing Wyatt Earp's ownership of three gambling joints in Wichita.I was a little surprised to see Bat put a move on his dead brother's girl (Julie Adams), and I probably would have been disappointed if the picture went in that direction. Fortunately he figured out that the relationship would have been doomed from the start. However there was a fall back position with partner Lily (Nancy Gates) from the Lady Gay which wound up working out in the end.I had to do a double take with the gunfight finale here, as all the while it had the earmarks of the James Arness weekly opening of 'Gunsmoke' which ran for twenty one seasons. It made some sense, since Matt Dillon was the marshal of Dodge City too, probably right after Bat left if I had to guess. Interestingly though, the first season of Gunsmoke occurred four years earlier, making McCrae's showdown somewhat unoriginal in the execution.

My vote has always been that of all the great stars identified as western heroes, none was more upright than Joel McCrea. In fact whenever he tried to vary that character, the results usually weren't that good. Even in comedy parts like his films with Preston Sturges, he's still an honorable man, albeit caught up in some lunacy.McCrea never crossed the line into making himself look ridiculous like Dudley Doo-Right and The Gunfight at Dodge City is a case in point. Here he's playing Bat Masterson who has come into Dodge City after a killing in another town and buys an interest in the Lady Gay Saloon owned by widow Nancy Gates. Brother Ed Masterson, played by Harry Lauter is the town marshal and he's keeping company with preacher's daughter played by Julie Adams.Brother Ed is shot in the back during a cowboy hurrahing of Dodge City and Bat steps in to take his place. He brings some law and order back to Dodge City and makes both friends and enemies in the process. And he's got both the women mentioned before interested in him.Fate would have it, a friend from another town comes back in his life. He wants him to bust his brother, who's mentally retarded, out of custody. The brother has killed a man who was making fun of him. He owes this guy big time and he has a responsibility to his badge in Dodge City.I won't say anything, but Joel McCrea never took the less honorable route in his cinematic career. And as for which woman he winds up with? See the film.Also look for an unusual performance against type from Richard Anderson. Anderson usually plays nice guys and he's best known for being Lee Majors boss in the Six Million Dollar Man. He's a serpentine villain here and a good one.I saw this when I was 12 years old when it was the second feature of a double bill. That's what McCrea westerns were relegated to at that time. But Joel McCrea was a real cowboy hero to this 12 year old.Still is.

Absent from this film are Wyatt Earp, Masterson's close friend and colleague in Dodge City, and Masterson's dapper clothing, a lifelong trademark, two major flaws in the film. His avoidance of public office doesn't ring true, either. The plot itself takes considerable liberties with the truth. (The television series "Bat Masterson" was closer to the truth in spirit and sometimes in fact.)However, McCrea's intelligent and introspective portrayal of Masterson is on the mark. The acting of him and the rest of the cast carry the film, which is saddled with uninspired direction.