For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

A very short western,clocking at hardly 70 min,but a fast moving one,well acted and with a screenplay which can appeal to ladies ,which is not obvious a far as this genre is concerned ;the background may be the wild west ,but the plot is sometimes close to detective story ,a whodunit (although you would have guessed who the culprit is in the first minutes!) ' Annee Francis portrays a young widow,falsely accused of her husband 's murder and sentenced to death (rare in westerns for a girl!);as her uncle helps her to escape (with Chuck "rifleman" Connors dressed up as a priest),the ruthless in-laws......well check the title .Rory Calhoun is efficient as the hired gun ;he also produced this entertaining movie,which seems to suffer for its small budget :the last quarter seems botched,but the rest is pretty well done.

Anne Francis is about to hung for the murder of her husband, the son of the local Ponderosa owner John Litel. But her uncle sends Chuck Connors to rescue her and he does, taking her across the Texas state line to New Mexico territory where he, Robert Burton is the local Ponderosa owner. And due to Burton's influence, New Mexico will not honor extradition. What to do, but hire out for The Hired Gun.In this case it's Rory Calhoun who gets hired for $5000.00 dollars to deliver Francis back to Texas for the sentence to be carried out. He's even deputized to make what is kidnapping have some trapping of legality.Of course with their time on the trail Calhoun and Francis start getting acquainted. I don't think I have to go any further.The Hired Gun was almost like watching two different films. A plot line where Francis is being given some unwanted attentions by her rescuer Connors is left dangling. Quite frankly I can't blame Connors for expecting some kind of manifestation of that gratitude. Then when Calhoun and Francis cross the state line, it's like a whole new movie started. I think some writing might have changed midpoint in the film or it was to be a whole bigger type of western when originally conceived.With stuff like The Hired Gun which Calhoun also produced not being that well received, no wonder Rory Calhoun opted for a TV and he would star in his own television series, The Texan very shortly.

Rory Calhoun co-produced this modest but predictable oater about a professional gunman who tracks down an escaped murderer who is scheduled to get hanged at the outset of this tightly-made western. Clocking in at 63 minutes, "The Hired Gun" is entertaining potboiler with several future stars, such as Chuck Connors and Vince Edwards, fleshing out a convincing cast. As this saga opens, Judd Farrow (a pre-"Rifleman" Connors)enters the town dressed as a minister and rescues convicted killer Ellen Beldon (Anne Francis of "Bad Day at Black Rock")from the gallows. It seems that Ellen killed her husband during an argument at a party. When everybody went outside to see what the commotion was all about,they found her standing over her dead husband's body with a smoking revolver at her feet. Veteran character actor John Litel of "Dodge City" (1939), who used to co-star in Warner Brothers westerns, such as "Dodge City" (1939)and "San Antonio" (1945), as a stalwart by sympathetic character, plays the upset father of the deceased. He wants to see his dead stepson's wife get her pretty little neck stretched. After she escapes with Connors and heads to New Mexico, which refuses to extradite her to Texas, Litel hires tough guy gunslinger Gil McCord (Calhoun), and he pins on a badge from the local lawman to make everything legitimate. Of course, after Rory manages to abduct her and take her back to face justice, he begins to have doubts about her guilt. Harold J. Marzoratti's widescreen black and white cinematography is a pleasure to watch. The outdoors scenery is appropriately rugged and the frontier towns look like they are on the frontier instead of a tree-planted studio backlot, so everything has a dusty, rough-hewn, realistic feel. Francis is good as the female killer. Although Connors doesn't get as much screen time, he makes an indelible impression while hot-headed Vince Edwards makes a suitable nemesis for Rory in the final quarter-hour. The real pleasure of watching "The Hired Gun" is watching a supremely confident Rory Calhoun give another solid, if uninspiring performance. Calhoun has presence and you believe that he is as leathery as he looks on the big screen. "The Hired Gun" recalls the kind of westerns that Randolph Scott made with director Budd Boetticher at about the same time. Finally, don't overlook Guinn "Big Boy" Williams of "Santa Fe Trail" in a minor supporting role as a tough hombre that Rory has to lash up with rawhide strips to sweat the truth out of him.

Badly made western featuring Calhoun as a gunfighter paid $5000 to go find an escaped murderer-- who happens to be Anne Francis. He does so, and of course, everyone is trying to stop him. Terrible performances, terrible script, lack luster direction, wall to wall music-- all in all, a really bad movie. And it's only about 72 minutes long. Made back in the days when westerns ruled on the TV screens, it was shot widescreen, with only one or two well shot scenes, the rest of the time, it looked like they did one take and moved on. Classic scenes even included four Indians who were obviously white guys in grease paint. Good for a laugh, that's about it. TCM shows this once in a while-- a real hoot.