Le cavalier fantôme

This one would have gone over well with the under 12 crowd, many years ago. For you young folk, once upon a time movie theaters had matinees for kids every Saturday morning. Starting times varied - ours started at 10:00 am, and consisted of some cartoons, a serial, maybe a comedy short, and then a (fair-to-middling) western feature film. "Brimstone" would have filled the bill for one of these, and if I were 11 I would have rated it higher.

"Brimstone" is a typical two-dimensional western devoid of rational thought and motivation, the type produced by the carload by Poverty Row studios in the 40's. It has lots of action, with fistfights and shoot-outs and hombres talking tough. This one has stalwart Rod Cameron as a US Marshal trying to apprehend some stage robbers, in fact a family of them. The family is headed by Walter Brennan in iron-fisted fashion as a cantankerous old rancher, and he makes the most out of his chance to carry a movie. He is like Moe and his sons like the other Stooges, aided by some unintentionally funny dialogue and knockabout comedy, as the British would say. (Of course,this is supposed to be deadly serious stuff).

There are the usual plot dead ends and unresolved loose ends which I always find annoying, but at the age of 11, who would notice? There is enough action to fire up the young audience, and cause the matron to descend on us and order all concerned to be quiet, flashlight in hand.