Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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

I think a 7 out of 10 is not a bad rating for a movie, given how many deserve a 1 or a 3. Ten Wanted Men starts off with one big thing in its favor - it is a beautiful movie to watch. The color of this film is rich and true and it makes most every scene a treat for the eyes. The story itself is reasonably good - I found myself engaged in it fairly early when Campbell gets into it with Howie Stewart. (This is the second movie of Homeier's where he played someone named Howie.) I like Randolph Scott a lot but I'm also a Homeier fan, and he had a good part in this movie. Unlike his usual bad guy roles, here he played a good guy who still had the opportunity to shoot a gun and break out of jail and such. Lee Van Cleef had only a small role, really, but was very good in it. Denver Pyle was about as nasty and evil a character as I've seen him play. As far as the story goes, I would have liked to see Scott use the dynamite to greater advantage against the bad guys; they had it coming.So, this is not the greatest movie ever made, but I think it rates a seven at least. If you like Westerns, you won't regret watching this one. Just the great color is a selling point, but the story itself isn't bad at all.

In contrast to his usual roles as a loner or "stranger in town", Randolph Scott plays a very successful rancher, but doesn't really fit the patriarch mould, though he does get to wear a fancy waistcoat.Like other commentators, I thought that his practical joke at the beginning was foolish, and that the way the chip on bad guy Wick Campbell's shoulder grew was a bit unbelievable. And it was way into the film that I started to wonder about the "Ten Wanted Men" of the title. When the imported bad guys massed for the final shoot-out I tried to count them, and they did seem to number ten.I wondered if the version I saw on British TV had been subject to editing, such was the jerky plot, but the original runtime of 80 minutes was accommodated by the 85-minute viewing slot (including a couple of commercial breaks). The relationship between Maria and Howie seemed to happen instantaneously, and the "ten wanted men" turned up in town almost spontaneously.It was good to see Skip Homeier acting against type; he's nearly always a bad guy who gets killed; here he's even slow to rise to provocation from one of Campbell's heavies. I was half-expecting him to turn out bad but...Leo Gordon stole quite a few scenes from Richard Boone, who didn't perform that well. He had the most complex role in the film, with a chip-on-the-shoulder, somewhat pathetic infatuation with a young girl, and a really mean streak.Lee van Cleef didn't have much to do. "High Noon" apart, his filmography up to now had been unimpressive, but his day was coming.Quite apart from his misplaced sense of humour at the beginning, Scott took a foolish risk by walking into the bad guy's saloon by himself, and where were all his ranch-hands in the final confrontation? Without them, he had an unimpressive set of allies in the siege. Earlier he had recalled how he had won his land from the Apaches despite them burning him out four time, so perhaps he had a strong sense of indestructibility. John Wayne would have carried off the role better.Moonraker

A great looking movie with unusual touches that set it apart from most other westerns of the period and put on a par or beyond some of the later Bud Boetticher films.The reality is so heightened and the sexual obsession so strong throughout that I was reminded of Nicholas Ray's classic Johnny Guitar. Although there's no need for Joan Crawford here. The men (good and bad) are as pretty as the girls and the violence is in places grueling with a twist in the final shootout (they don't use guns) that was surprisingly effective.For these reasons the film scored an unexpected 10 from me. Sony's DVD release is beautifully cleaned up. Watch it and enjoy.

Actor-Producer Randolph Scott and writer-producer Harry Joe Brown collaborated on a number of good westerns. Unfortunately, TEN WANTED MEN is not one of them. You know you're in trouble when the title of the movie makes no sense. Richard Boone has a number of gunmen working for him, but it's never apparent any of them are wanted for anything, though they should be.WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERSThe movie opens with Scott having engineered a bogus stagecoach robbery, intended as a practical joke. Yet Scott had no way of knowing whether anyone would be hurt. It was a stupid, dangerous thing to do; certainly not the best way to introduce your `hero'.Richard Boone kills Andy Clyde in cold blood, using his gunmen's to lie for him. Yet, there is not even a hearing; and, wouldn't SOMEONE have known Clyde had the money to pay his debt to Boone? Skip Homier and Scott's ranch foreman see Boone's men rustling Scott's cattle. Yet, when Boone says Scott has no witnesses, Scott doesn't challenge him.Homier kills Denver Pyle in self defense, using Leo Gordon's gun. Even though Gordon and Boone's other men are clearly unreliable witnesses and Homier is known not to carry a gun, the sheriff arrests Homier.The editing in TEN WANTED MEN is frequently choppy, never more so than the climactic fight between Scott and Leo Gordon. Scott and Gordon look as if they are jumping around the screen.Dennis Weaver is hit by a bullet coming through a window. From the trajectory of the hole in the glass, Weaver should have been hit in the neck, but Weaver's character is given the old, reliable shoulder wound.Two stunt men drop their horses BEFORE Scott's dynamite explodes.The acting ranges from indifferent to terrible. Scott, as almost always, plays Scott. Even the usually reliable Richard Boone is off his game.Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Lee Van Cleef, Leo Gordon, Denver Pyle. This one should have been a classic. Instead, it's a dog. I give TEN WANTED MEN a `4'. Oh, and matches were invented in 1826.