Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Good movie but grossly overrated

As Good As It Gets

The acting in this movie is really good.

First time director Ray Milland must have scored a success with this psychological Western typical of the 1950s, as he went on to both direct and star in four more features- 1956's "Lisbon," 1958's "The Safecracker," 1962's "Panic in Year Zero!" and 1967's "Hostile Witness." In the role of Wesley Steele, a gunman of ill repute, having to kill simply to survive, director Milland begins the film with nearly a half hour without (much) dialogue. Steele discovers a massacred stagecoach, five people shot dead (including a little girl), all the money gone. He soon finds himself in a most unfriendly town, where the hapless deputy (Alan Hale Jr.) prefers to shoot first and ask questions later; incredibly, the safest place for Steele to hide from a possible lynching turns out to be the Sheriff's quarantined home, due to his being bedridden with yellow fever. Lovely Mary Murphy, Marlon Brando's leading lady in "The Wild One," is entrusted with the most difficult role, the Sheriff's daughter, who naturally falls for the much older Steele, and capably manages the feat of growing up from 'daddy's little girl' to feisty heroine, inspiring Wes to return to clear his name, and redeeming her own father (Ward Bond), who had fallen under the crooked influence of town banker and criminal mastermind Raymond Burr. You can't go wrong with a supporting cast that includes Lee Van Cleef, Douglas Spencer, Thomas Browne Henry, and Arthur Space. Unfortunately for Mary Murphy, her screen career wound down all too quickly, though television kept her busy for another two decades. Horror/sci fi buffs remember her turns in 1951's "When Worlds Collide," 1954's "The Mad Magician," and 1957's "The Electronic Monster."

That's right, folks, perhaps the most Hitchcockian western ever made, this one. Right from the first frames, the eye is very keen: first a doll in the dust, then a peek inside the stagecoach and watching only from the knees to chest, the body of the little girl killed in a holdup. Then a very clean direction of Milland in this tale of a man falsely accused of murder and yes, On The Run. Saboteur in the West or any of the others he had the gun running from the mob etc. And finding the woman who believes him against the rest who are chasing him. The only difference here is that Milland is a gunman, whereas Hitch usually used the blank hero, flawless and innocent, chaste and chased. Otherwise he fits the bill.No western made was ever quite like this, more of a suspense film than rawhide. And very interesting. Too bad Milland was never interviewed about its peculiarities.

I was surprised about how good this was since Ray Milland didn't star in hardly any westerns and this was the only western he directed. Milland plays a gunfighter who's horse dies in the desert and starts to walk when he comes across a carriage full of dead people and he takes a horse and goes into the nearest town. As soon as gets into town, Milland shoots a deputy who thought he was the killer and the whole town is after him. Milland winds up hiding in the basement of the sheriff and his daughter and the daughter winds up falling in love with him. Ward Bond plays the sheriff who was sick and when he wakes up doesn't know what's going on. It's a good western that isn't very well known.

Milland, besides acting also directed this western with excellent results. His role is of the gunfighter who hides in Barbara Steele's house where she lives with her father, the sheriff(Ward Bond).The relationship of this trio is the high point of the film, Steele the repressed daughter, Bond the father who will do everything to make sure she will never be poor and Milland the man who comes to liberate her. Raymond Burr is the corrupt boss who rules the town and Lee Van Cleef is a mean guy who works for him. Things get so desperate for Milland that is hard to think how he is going to get out of it. He was a witness to all the dirt and murder that went on, so they must kill him.