Le Desperado de la plaine

Frank Lovejoy plays the title role of Cole Younger in this western from Allied Artists and proves that even outlaws have a code when it comes to paying a debt.

When both James Best and Jan Merlin are running from the carpetbagger Texas State Police they come across Lovejoy. Best stops Merlin from turning in Lovejoy for the reward. After that Best and Lovejoy start riding the trail together.

In the end Lovejoy finally repays the debt.

Jan Merlin stands out in the supporting cast. In his younger days when he wasn't starring on TV in the Rough Riders he played various punk roles. He's a real low life here.

The Texas State Police have come down in history as one corrupt group. I've no doubt they were. But in Reconstruction Texas the main objection to them was that they included black people in their ranks.

Still this western is a good if not wholly accurate.

In 1873 the proud citizens of Texas were humiliated and oppressed under the carpet-bagger administration of Governor E.J. Davis and his especially created state police, the corrupt and tyrannical "Bluebellies". Natuarlly they didn't take it lying down - - -

R.G. Springsteen directs and Daniel Mainwaring adapts from Clifton Adams' novel, The Desperado.

This is pretty much a like for like remake of Thomas Carr's 1954 version which took the title of the novel. Only difference here is that it is in De Luxe Color and filmed through the CinemaScope process. Main character change is with the outlaw Cole Younger (Frank Lovejoy), where in the 54 film it was an outlaw named Sam Garrett played by Wayne Morris.

In short the pic finds James Best having to leave town due to a violent confrontation with the Bluebellie captain. On the run and having left behind the love of his life (Abby Dalton), he hooks up with outlaw Cole Younger, forms a friendship and is thankful of that friendship when treacherous Frank Wittrock (Jan Merlin) fits him up for a murder.

It looks absolutely gorgeous, the colour, the Simi Valley locations, costumes and set design, but it rarely raises the pulses. It sort of plods through the story and fails to utilise what is a decent cast (it was Lovejoy's last feature length film). There's some value in the themes at work, such as refusing to bow to tyranny and that some gunmen were honourable and kept to gentlemen codes of conduct, but really it's lazy and you are strongly urged to seek out the far superior 54 film instead. 5/10

A western, in glorious color. When hooligans terrorize a town in the old west, caswell (james best, coltrane on dukes of hazzard) is blamed for a murder. Can an outlaw's word save him at a trial? Frank lovejoy is cole younger. And there really was a cole younger, born in 1844, which would have made him about twenty in the civil war. Later, when the war ended, he and his brothers actually did commit various crimes as bandits, as described in wikipedia dot org. It's pretty good! Your basic western, but i think i paid a little more attention just because it was based on a real guy. Filmed at stunt man ray corrigan's old ranch, which was later owned by Bob hope. And is now a beautiful county park. Story based on desperados, by clifton adams, who died young himself at 51. Directed by robert springsteen. Lovejoy died young at age 50. Ainslie pryor died even younger at 37. More recently, there's also "cole younger and the black train" made in 2012.

Not a bad western, among the best from RG Springsteen, whose films made for AC Lyles in the early sixties were purely childish and lame, nearly awful to watch. Here, this is a Allien Artists - former Monogram - production, some kind of a guarantee of quality, I mean not a lousy film. The directing skills are very limited, it is not a Budd Boetticher's film, nor a Joseph H Lewis' one, but let's not be too hard with RG Springsteen, who did his very - James - best here. So, please don't despise this honorable western, it deserves it. And keep in mind that RG Springsteen has made here one of his best westerns.

"Cole Younger, Gunfighter" is a remake of "The Desperado"...which is odd since the first film was made only four years earlier. Also, despite the title mentioning the real-life criminal, Cole Younger, it is a fictional movie.

The story begins in the South just after the Civil War. In this Hollywood version of history, the South was being cruelly run by evil Carpetbaggers and Bluebellies. Carpetbaggers was a nickname for Northerners who moved to the South following the war in order to exploit the Southerners. Bluebellies were Union soldiers stationed in the South. The problem is that although MANY films of the 20th century talk about the scourge of these two groups, this really isn't very accurate. Although surely SOME of the troops and Carpetbaggers exploited the people and were jerks, this is NOT the norm. What WAS the norm is that many Southern men felt disenfranchised...and joined the KKK in order to retake power and keep black citizens from power. I don't want to talk much more about this, but it is a common myth in movies.

In this story, two Southern men are randomly picked out during a peaceful meeting which had nothing to do with politics or hate. The two men are cruelly beaten in order to get them to confess to crimes against the Reconstruction government (i.e., the military leaders appointed to run the various ex-Confederate states). The pair are beaten badly...but one manages to stop his attacker and he ends up beating the Bluebelly. Now Kit and Frank (James Best and Jan Merlin) are on the run from the law and eventually meet up with the bandit, Cole Younger (Frank Lovejoy). Frank tries to capture Younger for the reward money....and Kit beats the snot out of him. As Frank runs off, he threatens to 'get you both'! Younger is worried that not killing Frank will come back to haunt him. And, because Kit stays with Younger, he finds that he is now a wanted man. What's next? Well, apart from a lot of shooting, you should just see the movie.

If you realize it's almost all fiction and you don't mind its historical inaccuracies, then you are left with a pretty good film with some very good acting.

Sadly, this was Frank Lovejoy's last film....as he had a fatal heart attack at age 50. He's quite good in the film...even if he lacks any sort of Southern accent.