Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

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

With lots of intricate subordinate plot in the overall probably familiar tale of a tough town tamer, this script by N.B. Stone, Jr., and Richard Wilson is very well served by an excellent cast, led by Robert Mitchum.Jan Sterling, a superlative actress not often enough given a character to show her talent, is second billed as a strong and tough woman who chaperones her female charges, who only dance and entertain, but who are seen by the blue-nosed women of the town as something worse.Karen Sharpe, who has never looked prettier, very girl-next-door-ish, plays the daughter of the town blacksmith who is also the town leader.The daughter is conflicted but her father, played beautifully by Emile Meyer, is not.One of the glories of this excellent motion picture is the number of other characters -- I hesitate to say "minor" because they all figure in the story -- whose lives and actions are pivotal.By one of those coincidences, I just finished a novel by Louis L'Amour with a very similar plot, except the town tamer in "The Empty Land" really doesn't want his role while Mitchum's Clint Tollinger does.This might be the best script for a movie I've ever watched about a town tamer. It has depth and darkness and a realism not often found in Westerns of the 1950s era. Excellent script and excellent cast make this a movie I recommend. And you can see it at YouTube. When I watched, it was interrupted by too many commercials, but that's a fairly low price to see it.

Robert Mitchum is excellent in this film...so much so you wish he'd made more westerns. However, it's not among his most famous films because of the poor writing. Apart from Mitchum's character, most of the rest of the folks in the movie simply make little sense.When the story begins, a town is being controlled by a guy intent on having his own way. He has a gang of gunmen and uses intimidation and a very weak sheriff to make the townsfolk tow the line. However, when a so-called 'town tamer' (Mitchum) comes to this crappy town, he offers to rid the town of lawlessness...provided they leave it entirely to him and don't question his methods. Surprisingly, this did NOT mean the guy running roughshod over the people's rights. Instead, he acted very deliberately to strategically rid the town of the menace.What annoyed me so much about the film were the other characters. The town fathers almost constantly questioned the town tamer's methods and almost immediately started trying to undermine him. Why? I have no idea. And, there's one guy in town who has guts...then why does he have to ALWAYS run around half-cocked and creating trouble for himself?! And, why is there a hooker with a heart of gold (a bad cliché, I know) who loves the town tamer yet inexplicably does everything she can to drive him away from her. None of it makes sense and it's a darn shame since Mitchum is great in this one.By the way, keep a close eye on the 'ladies of ill repute' in the film. One of them is Angie Dickenson in a pre-star role and you have to look carefully to see her.

This is yet another film based upon one of the classic Western plots, the one about the fearless lawman or gunman who helps the inhabitants of a town or a group of homesteaders stand up against a gang of lawless desperadoes, often in the pay of a corrupt local rancher or other powerful business interests. I have come to think of this as the "Dodge City" plot, after one of the earliest well-known films to feature it, but there are many other examples, including "My Darling Clementine", "Gunfight at the OK Corral" and the various other retellings of the Wyatt Earp story, "Destry Rides Again", "Shane", "High Noon", Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo" (and its remakes) and several Clint Eastwood films such as "High Plains Drifter" and "Pale Rider". This film was originally released in the United Kingdom as "The Trouble Shooter", although when it turns up on British television these days it is generally referred to by its American title "Man with the Gun". (I understand that it is also sometimes known as "Deadly Peacemaker", making it a rare example of a film with three official titles). It is set in a nameless Western town which is being terrorised by a gang of gunmen hired by Dade Holman, a wealthy and powerful cattleman who hopes to force the local people out so he can acquire their property cheaply, and opens with a striking image of one of the bad guys shooting a little boy's dog in front of the child. The townspeople decide that enough is enough, and call in Clint Tollinger, a gun for hire with a reputation as a "town tamer". The film then narrates how Tollinger goes about his task. A complication is that Tollinger is the former lover (or possibly the former husband) of Nelly Bain, the manageress of the local "dance hall". This, in fact, appears to be a euphemism for the local brothel, but this is never spelt out clearly. Prostitution may have been a fact of life in the Old West, but in the fifties there were some facts of life which the censors insisted remain hidden from public view. Robert Mitchum made a number of Westerns throughout his career, although they were not always among his best films; he tended to be at his best in film noir, playing characters who were, if not outright villains like his Max Cady in "Cape Fear", at least morally ambiguous. He brings something of this quality to Tollinger, who is referred to as "the man in grey", the implication being that if he is not quite as black as the villains he is not as white as the driven snow either. Although he has been deputised by the town marshal, this is one film where the dividing line between an officially appointed lawman and a hired gun is a thin one. Tollinger has about him something of the ruthlessness which characterises his opponents, and his methods, such as setting fire to the town saloon, are not always ones which the law would sanction. The film does not, however, seriously call into question the "shoot first, ask questions later" philosophy of law enforcement in the way in which Michael Winner was later to do in his revisionist Western "Lawman". Tollinger may sometimes go over the top, but he is nevertheless the hero and his opponents are the bad guys. The film ends with the town well and truly tamed and the audience are left to conclude that peace and justice do indeed grow out of the barrel of a gun. In the fifties such a moral was not thought to be in any way exceptionable; indeed, it is a common philosophy in the cinema, and one not confined to the fifties or, for that matter, to Westerns. It is a philosophy which underlies just about every "tough cop" movie from "Dirty Harry" onwards, and most war films except those with an explicitly anti-war message. The trouble with "Man with a Gun", at least when seen from a modern perspective, is that it is likely to leave the viewer with a sense of déjà vu. In 1955 the "strong man with a gun" theme might have seemed slightly fresher than it does nowadays, but even then this film might have struck many people as an inferior imitation of "High Noon". Mitchum plays his part well, but none of the other acting contributions are particularly memorable, and this film is far from being the best on its particular theme; I would rate all those listed in my opening paragraph considerably higher. The basic plot became so well-known (and, indeed, such a cliché) that Mel Brooks chose it as the one to send up in his satirical spoof Western "Blazing Saddles". Richard Wilson's film strikes me as being the sort of thing that Brooks was aiming at. 6/10

There are westerns and there are westerns with many actors and then there is a Robert Mitchum western....in this film Mitchum plays a no nonsense, hard as nails character as a so called "town tamer"....he follows his estranged wife played coldly by Jan Sterling as she is the madame of a group of dance hall girls...Mitchum wants to make amends with his ex-wife Sterling but she is cold as ice toward him. Mitchum accepts the job as a combo sheriff and "town tamer" and then manages to shoot up the whole place and fight with anyone who gets in his way....he does not believe in taking any so called prisoners. Along the way Mitchum defends a local young man and his wife who are being terrorized by the local hoodlum who runs the town from his distant ranch. The town council soon gets very wary of Mitchum and wants to see him kicked out of the job...Mitchum in his normal, cold and calculating way tells the town to take a hike - that he wants to continue in his job. Check out a very young Angie Dickinson who plays a dance hall girl...must have been one of her first roles. In the end a good gun fighting scene with a set up dance hall girl and a town misfit played by Leo Gordon who along with the local kingpin rancher tries to wipe out Mitchum. Mitchum handles this role like a pro - cold and calculating, always looking over his shoulder for the next confrontation. One is never far away. A very young Karen Sharpe has a good role as a young housewife infatuated with Mitchum. In the end Mitchum is shot up and winds up in the arms of his estranged wife Sterling. Solid western, very enjoyable....Mitchum up to top standards as a hard charging sheriff. One of Mitchum's best B westerns.