Rebel in Town

A mixture of Film Noir elements, a lot of psychological insight and scenes that are typical to the usual Western this makes for an unusual film. A child is killed and the man who caused it tries to evade responsibility for it, and many brutal scenes are shown before the final outcome. Filmed in black and white this accentuates the Noir feel, and the direction and casting is excellent. Ruth Roman is at her best as the child's mother, and so is Ben Cooper as one of the brothers of the killer, who tries to restore justice in his own way. John Payne gives a good performance as the father and I cannot fault the acting. In my opinion this film should be better known, and valued but if found it is well worth seeing. A deserved 10.

I just watched this movie on Netflix. Although I am a big western fan, I had never seen this movie with its wonderful cast. The general story line is about a nervous confederate man shooting a boy and then becoming more cowardly than ever, allowing his brother to take the blame. That's not what this movie is truly about. It is about the psychological effects people had as the Civil War ended. On one side, we have the heroic Northern officer who can't resist always assisting the law and his perspective of the Confederacy that he has passed on to his son. On the other side, we have five war-weary confederate soldiers, four brothers and a father, having just robbed a bank in a nearby town, but having a need for water. Three of them ride into town and one is involved with a shooting. The youngest brother feels guilt and wants to do the right thing. The father of the shooting victim wants revenge against the soldiers, regardless of the fact it was an accident. The story hinges on the tug and pull of the emotions and feelings people had, due to the War. If there was something I would criticize, it would be the writer finding the easy out by making the shooter become cowardly and unconcerned about anyone but himself. What made this western stand out to me was the material it covered. It was not a simple plot. The emotional content is what makes this story special, the right and wrong perspective idea consistently flows throughout this movie with only Ruth Roman being the voice of reason and logic. All the actors did great jobs with their characters and it was refreshing watching actors, normally portrayed as stereotypical heroes playing people with huge flaws that pinpointed their humanity. I would like to have seen more of Ben Johnson (side bar complaint). Very worthy of watching more than once.

When an Ex-Confederate patriarch and his four sons stop for supplies on the run after robbing a bank, one of them gets nervous hearing a cocked pistol behind him and turns quickly, blasting a 9 yr old boy playing with a toy pistol. The murder of the child spawns hate and a blind rage for vengeance in the small western town. J. Carroll Naish has one of his best roles as the Bible-spouting sire of a brood of scum, trying to keep them in order. John Payne as the traumatized father of the dead boy gives an unnerving performance as a decent man who's become emotionally unbalanced. His uncertainty and mental disruption are almost palpable as his alarmed wife (Ruth Roman) desperately tries to stifle his increasingly homicidal personality. It's very unsettling to see Payne in this unheroic light...the difference from his usual demeanor draws a very convincing portrait of a severely unbalanced man. Ben Cooper (who usually plays a disturbed role) is uncommonly sympathetic here as the only member of the gang responsible enough to acknowledge guilt for the tragedy, even though his own life is at risk instead of his older brother's, the unrepentant perpetrator. This is definitely several cuts above your average western and sustains viewers'interest throughout. Highly recommended....

Rebel In Town is set in the post Civil War west where the surrender at Appomattox hasn't ended conflict in the minds of some. One of those is John Payne who was a Union Army major in the war, but now has settled back on his ranch with wife Ruth Roman and son Bobby Clark. Payne feels we've got a big law and order problem with a lot of former Confederates turning outlaws to survive and is the first to volunteer for any posse to track them down.

But when the Mason family, J. Carrol Naish and his four sons come riding into town for supplies it's a recipe for trouble. When little Bobby Clark shoots at the family from behind with a cap pistol, one of the Masons turns and returns fire killing the kid instantly. The Masons beat it out of town.

The rest of Rebel In Town concerns the actions of Payne and the rest of the town in apprehending the criminals and the Mason family who are torn with what to do.

The Masons are a whole lot like the Hannesseys in The Big Country. The budget for the B western Rebel In Town is a fraction of what The Big Country was, yet William Wyler seems to have been influenced by the relationship of family patriarch Naish with the most reckless of his sons John Smith in creating the characters that Burl Ives and Chuck Connors played in The Big Country.

As for Payne, he's in his vengeance quest persona, something not seen in him since his highly rated performance in the noir classic Kansas City Confidential.

Rebel In Town is no frills B western with some nice performances from the cast. John Payne's fans will like his work here.

Most Westerns use one of a limited number of standard plots, but it's hard to categorize this movie. Its setting -- a small frontier town -- merely serves as a background for a drama of revenge and reconciliation which could easily be recast as a Greek tragedy. Its central question certainly rises above the usual concerns of Westerns: can the sacrifice of one man's guilty son make up for the death of another man's innocent son?

Or, as J. Carroll Naish puts it in the last scene: "What the sons of some men do to the sons of others ... there's a tragedy of the world."

John Payne, (sporting a mustache), gets top billing here but his character is absent from many of the movie's key scenes. Ben Cooper actually plays the main character as his feelings of guilt over the death of an innocent boy propels most of the plot. Ruth Roman seems miscast as a frontier wife and mother. The less said about the two juvenile performers, (Bobby Clark and Mimi Gibson), the better.

There's a vivid flogging scene in the movie's second half in which J. Carroll Naish takes a whip to the back of his son, John Smith, who's tied shirtless to a tree. This may be the American cinema's only major whipping in which a father strikes his own son.