Overrated

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

"The Duel at Silver Creek" is a 1952 Western starring Stephen McNally and Audie Murphy as a sheriff and green deputy who are trying to track down a murderous gang of claim jumpers. Meanwhile the sheriff pursues a new hottie in town (Faith Domergue) while the deputy is interested in a teenage cutie (Susan Cabot). A 27 year-old Lee Marvin is on hand as one of the possibly shady characters.I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this old Western. Murphy is great as the youthful and likable fast-gun and McNally is effective as the sheriff. Domergue is beautiful, but duplicitous and even shockingly evil (e.g. the unexpected strangling scene). Cabot is a joy to watch and it's interesting to see Marvin so young.The story is interesting with McNally narrating and it easily keeps your attention at only 77 minutes, but what brings my rating down is the roll-your-eyes plot gimmicks (for lack of better word) typical of old Westerns. For instance, the sheriff's bad finger that makes it almost impossible for him to squeeze the trigger of his handgun and how this becomes a big secret. And then there's the way the deputy expertly grazes the sheriff's arm in order to take his place in a fast-draw duel (What if he was off by a couple of centimeters?). If it weren't for these types of lame aspects I'd give "The Duel at Silver Creek" a higher grade.The locations are good, shot at three California ranches -- Corrigan Ranch, Iverson Ranch and Janss Conejo Ranch – as well as Vasquez Rocks.GRADE: B-

As others have said, this is an entertainingly complex and action-packed western. While it includes many of the cliché features of western of this era, it also includes some unusual features. In addition to the boyishly handsome Audie Murphy, we have two gorgeous gals who often are included in scenes, in Susan Cabot and Faith Domergue(pronounced Dah mure). My only complaint is that they look too much alike. The occasional reviewer gets them mixed up. It doesn't help that my DVD jacket shows Faith and Audie, technically the leads, together, whereas actually it's Susan's character(Dusty) that Audie falls for. Dusty is your stereotypical Cinderella 'low maintenance' 'good girl': pretty and undemanding, but poor, plainly dressed, and otherwise undistinguished. She's right for young Luke(Audie), but initially pines for the much older, familiar, marshal('Lightning'), who considers her too young as a potential mate. Faith, as Opal(Brown Eyes to Lightning), is your stereotypical 'bad girl': high maintenance, with an extensive collection of fancy outfits and jewelry, supported by criminal activities of one of her admirers(Rod), which she occasionally aids(like strangling a dying victim while claiming to have nurse training!) In addition to her 'brother' Rod, who is actually her partner in buying stolen mine claims, she finds a new 'boy toy' in the irreverent young show off 'Johnny Sombrero' as well as the unsuspecting marshal, to whom she serves as bait to lure him where he can be easily dispatched or reveal important info. She's marked for eventual downfall when 'Lightening' finally discovers her complicity in the recent claim jumping racket, and she feels compelled to tentatively switch sides to save her skin. she suffers the fate of Ruth Roman ,in "The Far Country", who was in a rather similar situation, romancing both the villain and hero.Meanwhile, we have complicated relationships between Lightening, Johnny Sombrero, and Audie, who reinvents himself as 'The Silver Kid', in a distinctive outfit, after being a victim of the jumper gang. Lightening suspects Johnny is behind some of the recent killings, but can't prove it. He hires the equally flashy and irreverent Silver Kid as his deputy to help protect him, his right hand being suboptimal in function from a shoulder slug. Lightening is forced to engage Johnny in a classic 'high noon' showdown. But the Silver Kid interrupts the proceedings by shooting Lightening in the trigger hand(knowing its suboptimal functionality), then taking his place. That's the second time he's saved Lightening from a potential bullet. Johnny's dying words provide a key clue to Lightening implicating Opal's involvement in the jumper gang. During the finale shootout at Silver Creek, between the gang and a large posse, Audie does his most impressive stunt. His only thought is to rescue the bound and gagged Dusty, whom he surmises is stashed in the cabin as a hostage. He makes a running dive through the glass window, and does a triple roll, before shooting the surprised guard. Between these two stunts, the relationship between Lightening and the Silver Kid sometimes deteriorates, as the Kid keeps trying to interfere in Lightening's relationship with Opal, whom he doesn't like, later to be vindicated.Although Audie is first billed, and winds up with the remaining featured girl, clearly, Stephen McNally, as Lightening, is otherwise the lead male. With Audie as his young sidekick, it's Lightening who performs the obligatory finale horse chase and shootout with the fleeing prime villain. Apparently , it was felt that Audie simply looked too small and young to make a convincing leading man in these types of westerns.As previously pointed out, the central plot of a gang who make prospectors sign over their claims, then usually shoot them, doesn't seem to make practical sense when they want to remain anonymous. To make money, they would have to work the mine or hire someone to do so, or sell the doctored claim paper to some new prospector, all of which provide means of identifying them, unless they use pseudonyms, with an intermediate claim clearance buyer(Rod), which presumably is what they did.Susan Cabot would again be featured as Audie's love interest in the subsequent western "Ride Clear of Diablo", where Audie again becomes a deputy. Despite her lack of exotic looks, she was perhaps more often cast as in Indian maiden or other exotic. She was disappointed in the shallow roles Universal gave her.The somewhat older Faith was initially featured in films thanks to the infatuation of Howard Hughes. But, he finally gave up on her after several films failed to make a splash. I thought she was charismatic in this film.Stephen McNally never made it big as an actor, lacking a distinctive look or personality. He often played villains or supporting roles. I thought he did a good job here.Presently, part of a 4 '50s westerns collection on DVD, with one film each starring Randolph Scott, Jeff Chandler and Alan Ladd

I'm not really sure what director Don Siegel was going for here, but it looks like he might have been trying to put one over on the movie Western fan. The first tip off is the scene where we're introduced to Marshal Lightning (Stephen McNally) of Silver City and a confrontation he has with Johnny Sombrero (Eugene Iglesias). Johnny Sombrero? This felt like one of those Mel Brooks spoofs to come down the pike a couple of decades later, I'm thinking of "Blazing Saddles". Even the name of bad guy Lacy's business, the Acme Mining Company, brought me back to those Wile E. Coyote cartoons where the hapless varmint just couldn't keep up with the Roadrunner. Are you starting to get the picture? Siegel then peppers the script with characters like the Silver Kid and Dusty; he even gives the outlaw leader's moll two names - Opal Lacy and Brown Eyes. All very camp.But also all very entertaining. The principals take the ball and run with it, and give them credit for for doing it without cracking up. There are so many inconsistencies in the picture that I almost lost count. How about Opal Lacy's (Faith Domergue) first scene when she chokes the claim jumped miner brought into the Army Hospital? With no time to loosen the bandanna, the Cavalry doc simply picks it up to cover the face of the dead miner. No suspicion there, right? And say, didn't the Silver Kid (Audie Murphy) gun down Tinhorn (Lee Marvin) after that card game when the Kid laid down three aces? Tinhorn shows up later none the worse for wear. At least Marvin stayed dead after he got shot by John Wayne in "The Comancheros". But I did get a kick out of The Kid's name for Tinhorn - 'sheep dip'. Audie Murphy may not have had the face of a killer, but he killed me with that line.I'll say this for Murphy though - even though he never quite brought his film persona up to the level of his real life war record, he has about the boldest action move I've ever seen in a Western in this flick. At the final shoot out at the mining camp, Murphy dives through the window and INTO the outlaw cabin! There could have been a whole boat load of bad guys in there and he could have come out like a sponge. But he did it in the name of love, rescuing his gal Dusty (Susan Cabot). I thought it was pretty cool the way Kid compared relationships and life to a hand of poker; with that save he showed all his cards.Of course the good guy team of Marshal Lightning and Silver Kid come out on top in the finale. It blows by pretty quickly, but it's revealed that Rod and Opal Lacy weren't siblings, which didn't make a whole lot of sense given the way the story was going. Lightning uses the old 'throw the rock in the other direction' trick to gun down the bad guy, and the only thing missing was a big old Cadillac to drive the heroes off into the sunset. Mel Brooks would have thought of that.

Duel At Silver Creek is a co-starring vehicle for Audie Murphy, the last of the great B-movie western stars, briskly directed by the great Don Siegel. The baby-faced Murphy, who made 46 films in 20 years before dying in a plane crash, was the most decorated soldier of World War II. (In fact the star's appearance can be taken as an ironic comment on visual stereotyping as John Wayne, who looked every inch a hero, avoided the call up entirely.) For the most part Murphy starred in second-rate vehicles with second-rate talent. A few titles have stood the test of time, such as Red Badge Of Courage (1951) or The Unforgiven (1960) both directed by Huston, or Boetticher's fine A Time For Dying (1969), also the actor's last film. By and large, however, Murphy suffered from a bland screen persona which only strong direction and casting could overcome, even if most of his vehicles remain watchable.Siegel, who went on to direct Dirty Harry (1971) and Charley Varrick (1973) was here at an early stage in his career, but had already made three or four other westerns before this one, his first in colour. Duel At Silver Creek is perhaps the most successful of those so far principally because the director is able to steer events along quickly enough to cover most of the weaknesses inherent in the script, and able to create a cast strong enough to balance out Murphy's presence. It opens as Luke Cromwell and his older partner work a gold claim, only to become the latest victims in a murderous claim-jumping racket. Luke's partner is forced to sign over the property while, after an exciting chase and shootout, Cromwell only narrowly escapes his own abrupt end. Soon he resurfaces as 'the Silver Kid', the baby faced gun-toting gambler, in a town where Marshall 'Lightning' Tyrone is also after the crooks. Chief among the suspects is Johnny Sombrero, a taunting thug who may be in league with the outlaws. The Marshall begins to develop an infatuation with the Opal Lacy (Susan Cabot), sister of the chief villain who by this time has also arrived in town. Meanwhile, handicapped by a wound, Tyrone is forced to turn to the Kid when the existing deputy is shot, and the two form an uneasy partnership.The above plot summary shows just how clichéd many of the plot points of Silver Creek are. A lot of the film reveals its B-movie origins, perhaps chief of which is the cliché of the crippled lawman. As the Marshall nurses his secret weakness, still hoping the keep the 'indian sign' over the ambitious Sombrero, the obvious irony is his reluctant need for the younger man to come to his aid. To this one might add the over-familiar dichotomy between the woman of the world (Opal) and the good girl (Dusty), the hiding of a key witness in a secret cave, as well as Silver Kid's conspicuous white handled armaments - conventions familiar to those versed in the genre. Despite these commonplace matters, Siegel still manages to turn in one or two striking scenes, such as when the sexually provocative Opal abruptly strangles a wounded man awaiting the doctor (thereby demonstrating the dead end nature of her charms) or when Pop, the original deputy, is shot and left facedown in the rain. Siegel's film has the advantage of co-starring Murphy with Stephen McNally as the Marshall and, after the opening sequence; they more or less spend equal time on screen together. McNally's maturity, both as actor and character, balances out the Kid's inexperience nicely. In particular the older actor's voice-over (a relatively unusual device in an otherwise straightforward western of this sort), places a lot of the action in context, adding an authoritative framework to somewhat flimsy proceedings. It also has the useful advantage of not requiring the Kid to explain himself too often, where a lack of gravitas would be a disadvantage. Several times explicit reference is made to the Murphy's youthful appearance, so at odds with his lethal potential. "He didn't have the face of a killer," says the Marshall on first sight of his ally-to-be, "but I noticed his hands were quick and sure." In fact the Marshall's authoritative voice-over like this, grounding events in descriptive seriousness, relates the film to a genre form that would be very familiar to contemporary viewers: the radio western. (I don't think Murphy ever did a series on air). In radio drama conventions of the period, a single male narrator frequently might 'carry' events by the force of his personality, his voice the sole source of moral judgment.Dressed in black leather, self conscious and slightly gauche, the Kid's character and his relation to a mature lawman reminds one of 'Mississippi' in Hawk's far superior El Dorado (1966), played by James Caan, or the Ricky Nelson part in the earlier Rio Bravo (1959). These later roles would be better developed, both in their relationship to the older mentor (Wayne, in both cases) as well as the moral intelligence behind a flashy rig. Set up with double guns, reserved although unnervingly assured, the Silver Kid remains two dimensional, a perception that not even his awkward romancing of Dusty can allay. Fortunately, as well as the strong role of the Marshall to distract us, there are some colourful characters further down the cast list. Notable is Johnny Sombrero (played by actor Eugene Iglesias, looking remarkably like a young Sean Penn) - as well as Tinhorn Burgess an already effective Lee Marvin, then currently working his way up through the ranks of B-heavies to future stardom.Silver Creek remains excellent entertainment, notably in the vivid DVD reincarnation that revels in a crisp colour picture with a range of vivid colours characteristic of 1950s' film stock. Incidentally, modern viewers will relish lines like (on the Marshall's damaged hand) "It's going to be kinda stiff for a while but you need to keep massaging it," as well as (on Opal's coded attractions) "Women like that are likely to a put a man's shooting iron plum out of action." Others will simply want to buy this and hark back to a less cynical period of western production when, with little psychology and angst, the biggest clue to man's intent was the size of his sombrero.