Kentucky Rifle

Everyone in this film is sooo clean and smelling of roses even though they are in the middle of nowhere, and BO is never a problem in the hot sun ! Cheap Western, shot mostly in a studio with a few external shots somewhere just outside ... Oh, and the bad guys are the Red Indians as usual .

Director Carl J. Hittelman's idea of staging is usually just to line up his cast of veterans talking at each other as if on a proscenium. Visual interest is however supplied by the contrast between the attractive locations and studio sets straight out of 'Star Trek'.

Hmmm. As B Westerns go, this has to be more of a C+ as Chill Wills really struggles to hold this together. He is "Taylor" who is in charge of repairing a busted wagon that's been left behind by the train - exposing it to a gang of marauding Comanches who want it's not-so-secret cargo of Winchesters. He's not helped by the fact that his colleagues are all a bit self-obsessed with each having their own agenda and who are all just a bit selfish. Can he get them all through safely without surrendering their lives and/or their weapons? I didn't really care, to be honest. The production is basic, the dialogue far too wordy and the characterisations, led by Wills but hardly augmented by the wooden as as spoon Cathy Downs ("Amy") and Lance Fuller's "Clay" do little to liven this rather procedural mix either. Henry Hull tries his best as the preacher, but by the mid-point I was the one praying: for the Comanches to do us all favour and put us out of our misery. One for list completists, I'd say - though quite what list this'd ever be on. Poor, sorry!

Out of the several hundred Westerns in my DVD collection, this one has to be the very worst. Totally incompetent. Hittleman must have been a better salesman than a movie maker to have even managed to raise what little money would have been needed to make this awful mess. It's devoid of even the campy charm that Ed Wood might have put into it. Wills, Downs, Holloway, & Cagney must have been hurting for money to have agreed to appear in something this bad. Released in 1956, the same year as George Stevens' Giant, Chill Wills must have been been rather amazed to find himself in two such different movie productions in the same year. I only wish that I could get back the time I wasted watching this trash.

"Jason Clay" (Lance Fuller) and "Tobias Taylor" (Chill Wills) are two people who have decided to join a wagon train headed to California where they can sell a new rifle they call the "Kentucky Rifle". To get to California they have to venture into Comanche territory which is made even more dangerous due to the fact that the Comanche know about these new rifles and want them very badly. Also in this wagon train is a pretty blonde by the name of "Amy Connors" (Cathy Downs) who is engaged to a man named "Daniel Foster" (Jess Barker) but becomes somewhat enamored of Jason along the way. This proceeds to create almost as many problems as the Comanche. Now, as far as the merits of this movie are concerned, I would just say that whenever the lead actor is somebody like Chill Wills or Lance Fuller then it pretty much goes without saying that this film doesn't exactly feature an all-star cast. And that could partially explain why this movie lacked excitement. In any case, those who enjoy western movies from this particular period might like this one. But quite frankly I thought it was marginal at best and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.