The Return of Jack Slade

The movie has more pluses than minuses. John Ericson is, there's no other word for it, sexy. Plus, he can really handle a gun! It's not his all time best performance (I still think that's in RHAPSODY) but it's solid.

He's a plus, and I really liked his friend in the film, Johnny, played by Jon Sheppod. I was sorry he didn't have a bigger part in the film. There are some nice love scenes between Ericson and Mari Blanchard.

I think Angie Dickinson even in a small role has more star power and beauty than Blanchard, and I would have liked to see her in Blanchard's part, chasing Ericson. But she's fun to watch anyway.

OK, you have to forgive the fact that the women are dressed in tight pants, wear ponytails and a lot of make-up--they look like women of the fifties, not the post-Civil War era.

And I was disappointed the film was not in color, especially since most of it is shot outdoors. But all in all, a good Western with scrumptious eye candy.

Yes folks, I prefered the film starring Mark Stevens, from the same director Harold Schuster, made a couple of years earlier; it was far more interesting, darker, than this one. It remains a honest western, very predictable, bland and, I repeat, just bearable to waste time. I have seen it a long time ago and forgot it just after watching. The main interest remains Neville Brand, Mari Blanchard and an early Angie Dickinson's role, several years before RIO BRAVO. John Ericson is quite good though. So, please don't avoid this western at all costs only because I preferd the first JACK SLADE; after all, it's just a matter of opinion. The only thing is that I will never forget the first movie with Mark Stevens, whilst I will forge this one just after a couple of days.

This is definitely a low budget picture but it has some pretty good production values. The film seems to be filmed totally outdoors and the use of polarizing or yellow filters made the sky shots dramatic. John Ericson's performance isn't particularly dramatic but for a 50s oater it was was above average. He's almost "too pretty" for this kind of role. I thought the winning over of Mari Blanchard was sort of hokey given that she stole Ericson's gun in the beginning of the movie. I found the romance between the two sort of forced but she was nice eye candy.

Nevil Brand played his usually great bad guy and he's one of my favorite western actors along with Jack Elam.

It was pleasant to see Angie Dickinson in one of her early performances.

One of the bones I have to pick with this film is a certain lack of realism. Cowboys of the period didn't wear belts to hold their pants up. They wore suspenders. Pants of the period didn't have belt loops

"The return of Jack Slade" makes me think that perfect relax, if not happiness, is an old unpretentious western of the 1950's. Everything in the movie contributes to smooth the viewer's nerves. The story is linear, pleasantly predictable, with a suitable number of classic gunfights and dramatic events. The hero John Ericson (Jack Slade) is handsome and fast with his gun. Neville Brand makes a nice job as the villain Sutton. The movie is entirely filmed in open air: the viewer breaths freely, he feels to ride together with the guys on the screen. A little paradox: the locations are beautiful, but not stunning (that's not Monument Valley or similar wonders of nature). Yet this very fact increases the relax of the viewer: too much beauty could require a tiresome concentration...

And there is a beautifully romantic, even touching love-story... Let's give much credit to the loveliness, charm and niceness of Mari Blanchard as Texas Rose (this very name is a treat: isn't it?).

And, yes, we also find a good deal of mild, agreeable erotism in the movie. You know, the camp of the outlaws swarms with gorgeous, cheerful girls (a very young Angie Dickinson among the others)... they all wear tight trousers and shirts, showing that they are, well, in great physical shape, to say the least... and the girls keep guns in holsters, and they draw and shoot, and a couple of them wrestle on the ground of jealousy... Thereafter three smiling beauties, even more attractive wearing 19th century lady robes, hijack a stagecoach, with alluring toughness... Light, good-taste erotism, perfect for dreaming without being disturbed.

I don't want to be misunderstood: "The return of Jack Slade" is a flick of no consequence (but the intense presence of Mari Blanchard is something, believe me). I don't care: I really had a good time seeing this movie.

In this loose sequel to JACK SLADE (1953), John Ericson is the son of a fabled killer of bad guys out west. He's as fast and accurate with a gun as his father. Howard Petrie recruits him to root out the Hole In The Wall Gang. Ericson goes undercover and discovers they're a non-sexist bunch, including Mari Blanchard, Donna Drew, and Angie Dickinson in her movie debut. Ericson and Miss Blanchard fall into each other's arms quickly, yearning for a normal life, but psychopathic Max Showalter keeps psychopathing.

He's good at it, adding some psychological depth to this Allied Artist western, as does the loneliness of Ericson. The gang is a bunch of really mean guys, which gets tiring, except for Showalter, but the action sequences, including the last shootout, are pretty good.

Director Harold Schuster would head only a couple of more movies, then retreat to TV work. He had started out as an editor, and was good at that. He shifted over to directing in the late 1930s, but had never reached the top ranks, and so slid down the rankings, still turning out good pictures, but less in demand. He died in 1986, aged 83.