Ride the Man Down

Several offerings of this film are available on YouTube, and I'm surprised that so far there are only two reviews here on IMDB - and these sum up RTMD very well indeed.

The cast includes many well-known and not so-well-known actors from 1950s Westerns, all of whom acquit themselves well.

As has been suggested, there was a lot of plot crammed into 90 minutes, and the number of characters' names was such that I had to concentrate to work out who was who. And there were quite a few localities named.

The fight between Rod Cameron and Forrest Tucker was one of the most impressive I've seen in films of this period, and Ella Raines as Celia Evarts acquitted herself very well against the roughs who invaded her home.

The final shoot-out in the dark seemed short, almost to the point of being anticlimactic.

But overall a good Western.

"Ride the man down" is a pleasant fast paced western about a ranch war with lot of characters played by a great casting (Jim Davis, Brian Donlevy, Forrest Tucker, ... and the punchy Ella Raines) with tough Rod Cameron as the defender of the purchased ranch. Always great photography by Jack Marta, especially at night. And Ella Raines character, as tough as a man, is the best (but I love her in every of her movies), don't miss her fight.

For a B western Ride The Man Down packs a lot of plot in its 90+ minute running time. It's a range war western, but it's complicated by the fact that several of the characters are really working their own agendas. It opens with the death during a blizzard of the death of a man who owned a large cattle spread.

He must have been a most strong and charismatic man holding his range together where boundaries apparently are not fixed things. His daughter and heir Ella Raines has lost a lot of her hands and relies now on foreman Rod Cameron to protect her interests. Cameron himself has ridden roughshod in the past over a lot of people to keep that land for his late employer.

Cameron's chief antagonist is Brian Donlevy, but Cameron has a lot of other enemies that only now are coming out because they think the local Ponderosa can't defend its interests any longer.

Besides those mentioned Ride The Man Down as an impressive cast list of familiar players like Forrest Tucker, Barbara Britton, Chill Wills, Taylor Holmes, Paul Fix, Roy Barcroft, Jim Davis, J. Carrol Naish, and Douglas Kennedy. All perform with the usual professional polish you would expect from this group. They all look western comfortable in their parts. Most have been in lots of westerns before others can adapt anywhere.

Ride The Man Down is a most adult western for a studio that churned out horse operas by the dozens every week for its Saturday afternoon kids. They watched their cowboys on television now and Republic now did its westerns for their parents. This one pretty good.

Rod Cameron was for Republic Pictures and Joseph Kane in particular the equivalent of Randolph Scott was for Andre De Toth, Edwin Marin or Budd Boetticher. And here, Rod Cameron has his usual and faithful pal Forrest Tucker. They often played together, with also the usual villain Jim Davis, a long time before he became famous as Ewing family patriarch in DALLAS series. So this Republic western is above many of others because it is not a cabaret western, as was for instance JUBILEE TRAIL and many other of this kind, taking place in San Francisco with many music hall, Burlesque sequences and songs, often starring Vera Ralston, Herbert J Yates' s - Republic Pictures mogul - wife. So this one belongs to the list of westerns over ninety minutes made for Republic during the fifties, in Trucolor and full of excitment.

In 1892, a foreman of a huge ranch in southern Utah (Rod Cameron) tries to stave off land grabbers (Brian Donlevy) and rustlers (Jim Davis) after the death of the patriarch. Curiously, the fiancé (Forrest Tucker) of the heir of the ranch (Ella Raines) seems to oppose the foreman's efforts.

Based on the Luke Short novel, "Ride the Man Down" (1952) starts out convoluted with a dozen key characters introduced in the first act. They tend to speak in that rat-a-tat-tat way which was in vogue back then. The flick needed another 30 more minutes of runtime to breath. If you pay attention, however, you'll eventually figure out who's who and the details thereof.

More than that, you'll discover a great little old Western that's undeservedly obscure. You can't beat the awesome Southwest locations in living color and Cameron makes for a stalwart, noble protagonist. Raines works well as the heroine and I enjoyed the human interest of the romantic possibilities with quality dialogues/acting.

If you appreciate old Westerns like "Albuquerque," "Whispering Smith," The Sundowners" (1950), "Shane" and "The Hangman," this is just as worthwhile in its unique way.

It runs 1 hour, 29 minutes, and was shot in Kanab, Utah, which is in the southwest region of the state by the border of Arizona.

GRADE: B+/A-