Shotgun

There are very few westerns that aren't built up mainly on a theme of revenge, the western avengers on films must be innumerable, and they are always bold cold-blooded heroes, and there is always some beautiful girl waiting for them. Yvonne de Carlo here though has plenty of skin on her nose, and although Sterling Hayden doesn't exactly treat her as a gentleman, she is after all a good match for him, after all the obligatory fights, fisticuffs and gunfights, including a formidable bunch of Apaches. Any western fan will buy all this and enjoy it even with relish, because of the splendid photo and equally splendid music by Carl Brandt, but it is still a rather conventional piece of routine very far from the more hardcore rough settlements of for example Sam Peckinpah. This is all right, you will enjoy the three great leading actors and their issues, you will even more enjoy the landscapes and the music, but it is hardly a film you would need to watch another time.

Shotgun is directed by Leslie Selander and collectively written by Clark E. Reynolds, Rory Calhoun and John C. Champion. It stars Sterling Hayden, Yvonne DeCarlo, Zachary Scott and Guy Prescott. A Technicolor production with music by Carl Brandt and cinematography by Ellsworth Fredricks.

Standard revenge themed Oater set amongst the beautiful back drop of Sedona in Arizona. Story follows a familiar trajectory. Ben Thompson (Prescott) hits town after a long stint in jail, he's after the blood of the lawmen who put him there. When tragedy strikes during this act of revenge, Marshal Clay Hardin (Hayden) sets off in pursuit. Out on the trail he will acquire companionship in the form of saddle tramp Abby (DeCarlo) and bounty hunter Reb Carlton (Scott). A pressure cooker atmosphere is generated between the three of them as we head towards the finale where the Apache join the fray and truth, justice and consequence will out.

Selander was an old pro at the Western game, unfortunately in this instance his inexperience with "tougher" themed Oaters shows. It is all very workmanlike and he fails to rein in DeCarlo's overacting and ignite a flame in Hayden who is in one of his "I'm only doing it for the money" moods. However, spurts of violence are handled efficiently enough to liven up the middle third when the picture threatens to sink into a boorish pot of beans. There's also a nice twist on the duel formula at film's end, with machismo and tricks showing a hand to reward the patient. It isn't a must see for Western fans, and frustrations reside within, but there's enough to keep it above average. Sometimes beautiful scenery and Sterling Hayden riding into an Apache camp with muscles flexed is enough to pass the time of day with. And so it proves here. 6.5/10

Sterling Hayden was a good, macho actor with a nice screen presence. Because he was so good, even a rather routine western like "Shotgun" is worth seeing.

The film begins with the Marshall being gunned down by Thompson and his gang. Their weapon...a shotgun. Deputy Marshall Clay Harden (Hayden) is all set to retire...but he cannot allow himself to leave the Marshall unavenged. So, he tracks the gang members though the Arizona countryside as he picks them off one by one. Along the way, he meets a superfluous woman, a sleazy bounty hunter and a whole lotta Apache.

The film is lovely to look at, as it's in color and the Sedona countryside is spectacular. Less spectacular is the plot, as Yvonne De Carlo's role isn't especially necessary AND some of the dialog between her and Hayden is downright silly. Also silly is the duel at the end...a bit hard to believe. But the film, on balance has a bit more to like than dislike and if you enjoy the genre, give this one a look.

By the way, this film has a rattlesnake...if you are deathly afraid of snakes, better try another movie!

Despite the promising setup where Deputy Marshal Clay (Hayden) vows to catch killers of his respected Marshal superior, the suspense of revenge fails to gel. The following pursuit carries him over miles of rugged western desert and sometimes hostile Apache. All in all, these are promising ingredients for a good dramatic oater.

Nonetheless, potential suspense fails to gel mainly because the storyline's cluttered by subplots involving DeCarlo and Scott. As scripted each detracts rather than adds to the main premise. But then both D and S were name performers at the time and I suspect they were added for marquee value. Nonetheless, what may have helped the box-office didn't help the end result, at least as scripted. And that's along with lots of meaningless slow riding that mainly pads the movie's runtime and adds nothing to a showdown build-up.

What the flick does have are dazzling red-rock backdrops of Sedona, Arizona. Thus eyes remain focused even as the story itself meanders. Then too, there are some good minor touches like Clay watering his desert-dry horse with his cowboy hat, a nifty unusual touch. Then there's Clay keeping his dirty shirt on after a dramatically staged fist-fight, thus showing an occasional concern for frontier realism.

My guess is that there's a good western buried somewhere beneath The Shotgun's meandering storyline. Certainly the Gary Cooper-like Hayden's capable of carrying out a really good oater. For example, the following year he would star in the best of all heist films, Kubrick's The Killing (1956), along with his many westerns.

Anyway, if you're more a fan of great natural scenery than a coherent storyline, then I recommend this Allied Artists 1955 flick, flawed though it is.

Even if you consider only his second part of career, this western is above the average stuff from this specialist in the gender. Of course Sterling Hayden contributes more than a part in the quality of this movie. The topic. In this film, Sterling Hayden's character has his first name CLAY and this is Hayden's last name in THE KILLING. That amused me. So, back to this western, yes we have the proof that Lesley Selander could make good films when he had the budget, especially after several decades of films and hundreds of them. He had plenty of time to learn how to direct westerns. The peculiarity here is the raw brutality of several scenes, very rude, rare for this period. But Ray Enright, another western specialist from the forties, gave us this kind of feeling too with some of his films. I almost forgot to speak of Yvonne De Carlo, the underrated great actress from Hollywood whose beauty was far far beyond the roles she had in her career.