The Cimarron Kid

With the completion of The Cimarron Kid Audie Murphy played three of the Old West's legendary outlaws, Billy The Kid in The Kid From Texas, Jesse James in Kansas Raiders, and Bill Doolin in this film. I'm not sure any other player earned that distinction.

Not that this is a true story of Doolin any more than those other two Universal western classics. Still Murphy makes an appealing and misunderstood hero who tries to go straight but the elements and his destiny work against him.

True enough his running buddies were the Dalton gang and in this film Doolin who was picked up by the railroad detectives after his release from prison when the Daltons held up the train he was riding. He was just a paying passenger, but the railroad cops thought he was in on it.

Standing out in the supporting cast is Hugh O'Brian who plays Murphy's rival for gang leadership. The fact that Murphy shoots better and has more upstairs than O'Brian fazes him not a wit. He's a mean and surly man miles from the upright Wyatt Earp he played on television.

Budd Boetticher directed Murphy in good polished style and this western delivers on both action and plot.

THE CIMARRON KID (1951) was one of about two dozen westerns Audie Murphy starred in at Universal Pictures in the period from 1950-1966. In brief, it tells the story of outlaw Bill Doolin who rode with the infamous Dalton gang in the disastrous raid on Coffeyville, Kansas, and went on to lead the gang's survivors in a subsequent robbery spree. A WWII hero-turned-movie star, Murphy plays Doolin as a misunderstood youth who gets forced into a life of crime through guilt by association and persecution by an overzealous railroad detective. Further complications ensue when Doolin falls in love with a rancher's daughter who wants him to go straight.

The film was directed by western specialist Budd Boetticher who provides quite a number of interesting touches. One of the gang members, played by James Best, has a Mexican girlfriend, known as Cimarron Rose (Yvette Dugay), who is an equal participant in the action and is used to acquire information about payroll shipments and assorted robbery targets. The other major woman character, rancher's daughter Carrie Roberts (Beverly Tyler), is pretty strong and forthright on her own and makes no attempt to play coy in her meetings with Doolin. She even comes up with a plan to help him leave the outlaw life, but one which he rejects.

Also, there is a significant black character, a man named Stacy (Frank Silvera) who provides support services for the gang, and who, while not actually a participant in their crimes, is dealt an equal share of the proceeds. There is a scene of him at home with his family--a wife and three children--that indicates his choice of a domestic life over an outlaw one, yet he is always treated with respect by the other men.

The rest of the cast consists of a mixed bag of character actors like Noah Beery Jr., Leif Erickson, Roy Roberts, John Hubbard, and Rand Brooks, and up-and-coming Universal contract players: James Best, Hugh O'Brian, John Bromfield, John Hudson, William Reynolds, Palmer Lee (Greg Palmer). At times they threaten to crowd the soft-spoken, unassuming Murphy off the screen, but Audie ultimately manages to hold his own. Boetticher and Murphy would work together one more time on Murphy's last film, A TIME FOR DYING (1971), in which the actor has a cameo as Jesse James.

I never saw an Audie Murphy film I didn't like & this one is no exception. It is a real action packed shoot-em-up, but it also has a better than average plot to hold your attention between the action sequences that were Audie's trademarks. I knew Audie quite well, we used to shoot together at the various "fast draw" contests in CA that were popular back in the '60's. I can tell you this, anything you saw Audie do on film, he could do for real. He was one of the fastest guns in the movies, & he could do it with real bullets, not just blanks or wax bullets! He became a fine horseman, even riding some of his own horses in his films. Watch for Flying John, his horse that he rode in "Night Passage". Audie was a much better actor than he was ever given credit for, or allowed to be in Universal's films.

This is the tale of Bill Doolin and the Dalton , one of the more thrilling true stories in Western history , being partially based on facts . Standard tale with better than average interpretation from Audie Murpy . It contains noisy action through well-trodden pastures , breathtaking assaults , bank heists , and there's plenty of fire-power , some efficiently staged excitement and go-riding . Although in real life Doolin who led the last great outlaw raids , here came to a less happy end than the one described there . After spending a time in prison Doolin is freed . Shortly thereafter, wrongly accused by crooked railroad officials of aiding a train heist by his old friends the Daltons, he joins their gang and becomes an active participant in other robberies. Doolin became a member of the Dalton Gang. On October 5, 1892, the Dalton Gang made its fateful attempt to rob two banks simultaneously in Coffeyville, Kansas. It was an utter failure, with a shootout between Coffeyville citizens and lawmen, and the outlaws, leaving four of the five gang members dead, with the exception of Emmett Dalton. Historians have since indicated that there was a sixth gang member in an alley holding the horses who escaped. Who this sixth man was remains unknown to this day. Emmett Dalton never disclosed his identity, but speculation continues that it may well have been Bill Doolin . 1892, Doolin formed his own gang, the Wild Bunch. On November 1, 1892, the gang robbed a bank in Spearville, Kansas. After the robbery, the gang fled with gang member Oliver Yantis to Oklahoma Territory, where they hid out at the house of Yantis' sister. Less than one month later, the gang was tracked to that location. In a shootout Yantis was killed, but the rest of the gang escaped. Two teenaged girls known as Little Britches and Cattle Annie also followed the gang and warned the men whenever law-enforcement officers were in pursuit. Sources indicate that it was Doolin who gave the young bandit Jennie Stevens her nickname of Little Britches . Doolin fled to New Mexico Territory, where he hid with outlaw Richard "Little Dick" West during the summer of 1895. In late 1895, Doolin and his wife hid out near Burden, Kansas, for a time, then they went to the resort community of Eureka Springs in northwestern Arkansas so that Doolin could utilize the bathhouses there to relieve his rheumatism brought on from his earlier gunshot wound in his foot. In early 1896, Doolin was captured in a bathhouse by Bill Tilghman .Doolin later escaped on July 5 and took refuge with his wife in Lawson in the Oklahoma Territory. There, on August 24, Doolin was killed by a shotgun blast by Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas

This stirring fare deals with the classy confrontation between outlaws and pistol-wielding lawmen determined to chase them . Brawling , sprawling , almost primitive action in which our protagonist joins the rough band of the Dalton carrying out rampaging and violent robbing , but things go wrong when he is double-crossed . Features impressive as well as moving assault scenes punctuated by great action scenes and thrilling go-riding . Audie Murphy gives an acceptable acting as the brave historical figure Bill Doolin who joins the Dalton . This Bill Doolin and the Dalton story has been adapted several times notably with Randolph Scott in 1949 . The WWII hero Murphy won more than 10 medals , being the most decorated American soldier , including Congressional Medal of Honor and he was prized by 5 decorative medals by France and Belgium , post-WWII . Murphy starred a great number of Westerns as The kid from Texas , Cimarron kid , Gun point , Night passage , The gunrunners , Posse from hell , Gunfight at Comanche , Rifles Apaches , The unforgiven, Legend of Sam Ward , Whispering Smith , 40 guns at Apache pass , Texas Kid . Support cast is pretty well , the bad guys and good guys include a whole crop of familar faces you love to see . As good and bad guys appearing are the following ones : James Best , John Hudson , Yvette Duguay , Hugh O'Brian , Roy Roberts , Noah Beery Jr. , Hubbard , Leif Erickson , Frank Silvera , among others .

It contains a colorful and brilliant cinematography in blazing Technicolor by Charles P. Boyle in Universal International Pictures style . As well as evocative and stirring musical score . The motion picture produced by Ted Richmond was well directed by Budd Boetticher who was a Western expert . Not one of filmmaker Budd's best Western , but being acceptable enough, and decently made . His first Western was in 1949 called The Wolf Hunters , following Cimarron Kid , Bronco buster , Horizons West , Seminole, Man from the Alamo , and Wings of the hawk . In 1956 with 7 Men From Now starts his collaboration with Randolph Scott, along with producer Harry Joe Brown and writer Burt Kennedy , including prestigious titles as Tall T, Decision at sundown, Buchanan rides alone , Ride lonesome, Comanche station , among others . His last Western was in 1969 titled A time for dying with Audie Murphy. Budd also made other genres as Mobsters : The rise and fall of Legs Diamond , Mystery/suspense : Behind locked doors , WWII : Red Ball Express , and even Bullfighting sub-genre : The magnificent matador , Arruza , The bullfighter and the lady . Rating 6. 5/10 . The movie will appeal to Western aficionados and Audie Murphy fans

Parolee Audie Murphy violently resists a crooked district attorney's latest attempt to railroad him, based on his friendship to members of the notorious Dalton gang. Breaking parole, he ends up having to join the gang for real and becoming the new leader.

Though not quite as good or well-written as director Budd Boetticher's later series of Randolph Scott pictures, The Cimarron Kid is still a fairly entertaining, muscular pulp-western, with Boetticher's usual flair for excellent photography.

With his good looks, youthful appearance, and short stature (not to mention his hero status), I'm a little surprised at how many times Audie Murphy was given a chance to play an anti-hero (Night Passage, The Texican) or even a nasty villain (No Name On The Bullet). He's charming enough though, that the audience forgives the Cimarron Kid long before the law ever does.

Noah Beery Jr. gives an amiable, though far-too-short performance as the fun-loving Bob Dalton, while a young James Best and Yvette Dugay are pretty good too as a fellow member of the gang and his beautiful, though savvy love interest.