The Lone Gun

Formulaic oater with George Montgomery in the straight shootin', straight talkin' , singular expression role of new town marshall, doing his best to clean up the lawlessness factor, best represented by a trio of reprobate brothers led by that eternal 50's B western expert scoundrel actor, Neville Brand. Every thing is quite predictable, but I like the way director Ray Nazzaro keeps propelling the story forward with an absolute minimum of padding , whilst maximising the action and proving once again, that the bad guys can never shoot straight. (LOL! Even one of the brothers notes this of one of his compadres, after a pathetically ordinary, failed dry gulch attempt.)

For extra amusement listen for Montgomery's mispronunciation of what I gather was meant to be "shady", as in "shady tree" in the third act, as a turncoat felon is handcuffed to a tree. To my finely tuned ears , it sounds like a very commonly used, coarse, 6 letter epithet, that just may have slipped past both the sound editors and the censors at the time. Another reason to see a movie, the likes of which they don't seem too inclined to make anymore.

The lines which open the movie are overkill blah-blah-blah : the story which is about to be told has been treated countless times,before and afterward.

But this is an action-packed entertaining western ,very short (about 70 min) ,which makes the best of a low budget .Frank Faylen steals the show from cardboard Montgomery and reveals himself a smart gambler as well as a fine cook and eventually an efficient deputy ; the card games provide the movie with its best scenes :the poker game with Malone's naive brother and the wrong man reading the cards in his cell ; Malone (whose best parts are Sirk's "Written on the wind" -AA- and "tarnished angels" )is a nice cow-girl but her part is insignificant and conventional.

Watch it for Faylen.

In The Lone Gun, George Montgomery rides into town and immediately inherits the job as marshal after he handles the Moran brothers, the local toughs who are into a lot of the crime in the area. The Morans are played by tough guy actors Robert J. Wilke, Douglas Kennedy, and Neville Brand.

Among their criminal enterprises is cattle rustling and they've got a perfect hideout on the spread of brother and sister Dorothy Malone and Skip Homeier. Homeier is into the Morans on some gambling debts and they're holding that over his head.

The other main character in this western is tinhorn gambler Frank Faylen who has a ready wit and a fast shuffle for all occasions. He and Montgomery form a Wyatt Earp/Doc Holiday like partnership. Faylen also took the Morans for plenty so they have it in for him as well.

The Lone Gun is an entertaining western in which all the players acquit themselves well in their performances. The story moves well and the direction is taut. A good one for B western fans.

A good western which brings no surprise at all, routine programer with villains such as Neville Brand and Robert Wilke, and that's a good reason to justify the watch. But be sure to be a western buff first. George Montgomery is a wooden as usual, maybe a bit better than a Dale Robertson but not as much impressing or convincing as a Rory Calhoun. Two other western actors who also could easily have been OK for such a western yarn directed by the specialist of (A - B) western, besides Lesley Selander and some others: Ray Nazarro. I repeat, nothing astonishing here, just a good routine western and time waster.

Ray Nazzaro directs THE LONE GUN. Not too memorably, though I can sympathize with the fact that his budget cannot have allowed him room for more inventiveness and better production values.

The really interesting and eye-catching detail here is the appearance of a very young Dorothy Malone who would soon rise to stardom with the film WRITTEN IN THE WIND. Here, however, she plays a minor part, though the absence of female competition signals from the outset that she will ride off into the sunset with George Montgomery in the end.

There is an evil brotherly trio headed by the nefarious looking Neville Brand, and that trio is running the town ragged with its crimes, especially cattle rustling and, of course, some homicide for credible measure.

A couple of noteworthy details: 1. A fight on horseback among rocks, in which neither Montgomery nor the dastardly bros seem to care if they get into the line of fire; 2. Homeier as a kind of humorous Doc Holliday to sheriff Montgomery.

Forgettable cinematography and turgid dialogue. 6/10.