The Lonely Man

I looked at all the comments made for this film, but I feel I need to mention what's good about it. The acting and characters are first-rate and there are several familiar faces. The black and white cinematography is the best I've ever seen in a western...The location is wonderful--all in all the best looking western ever!!!! These things alone make it worth watching... I agree that the plot has lots of holes and needs some explaining at times, and answers to many questions are never given... But give this film a try...it's still very good!

Henry Levin did not direct many Westerns but he does well with this one, extracting credible performances from the main names, including Jack Palance, a gunslinger with a knot on his Colt for a dead sheriff, who left his son Perkins and wife, and who keeps straining his eyes until we learn that he is going blind; Anthony Perkins in good form, fresh from his supporting Oscar nomination in FRIENDLY PERSUASION; Neville Brand as master villain, very good at planning the killing of unaccompanied targets; Lee Van Cleef as cold killer sidekick happy to do it well; and a truly superior performance from Robert Middleton, who simply steals the show.

Excellent B&W cinematography from Lionel Lindon. Gripping dialogue in script by Harry Essex and Bob Smith, though the ending could have been a little bit more light-hearted... like, for instance, an operation to Palance's cataracts...

Superior B&W cinematography by Lionel Lindon (breathtaking mountain vistas and horses on the run), editing by Bill Murphy.

All told, well worth a watch. 7/10.

THE LONELY MAN, made in 1957, stars a forceful Jack Palance as a gunfighter who wishes to "retire", settle down, and make amends with his son, played by Anthony Perkins in the same type of nervous nelly role that would make him famous in "Psycho" three years later. So, in the proud tradition of Henry King's classic "The Gunfighter" and others. From a script by Harry Essex ("Creature from the Black Lagoon"), and capably directed by Henry Levin, who had much impressed me with his Glenn Ford vehicle "The Man from Colorado" all these years ago. Fantastic b/w photography by Lionel Lindon; excellent, sensitive score by (Nathan) Van Cleave. While not terribly original, this leisurely paced, character-driven drama is worth seeking out.

Jack Palance looks kind of odd with that mustache he wore for The Lonely Man. Still he's not the psychotic Palance we've seen in many of his films. He's the world weary gunfighter who's looking to get out of the business. But the notorious King Fisher played by Neville Brand who nearly died from a gunfight with Palance is looking to settle old accounts with Palance.

Of course King Fisher in fact was a real notorious gunman who operated in Texas. Brand gives a nice performance, but this is most definitely not King Fisher's story.

Anthony Perkins who specialized in playing callow youths in the Fifties is Palance's son along for the ride unwillingly because Palance left his mother way back when who is dead now. Perkins just has no other place to go.

In fact Palance has one very good reason for leaving gunfighting which I will not reveal. His only hope is that he can move as far as he can.

Palance and Perkins do strike a nice balance as the world weary father and his rebellious and a bit stupid son. There's also a nice supporting cast with people like Lee Van Cleef, Elisha Cook,Jr. and Robert Middleton and Claude Akins. All tried and true cinema villains though they're not all villains here.

A downer of a film,still nicely done.

I found "Lonely Man' in a local library. I can't believe it only has 26 votes on the IMDB. This is not as great as the Anthony Mann films I've studied in grad school. There is one with Anthony Perkins called "The Tin Star" which I would recommend more. But, this is still a good Western which doesn't follow the conventional theme/structure narrative. Worth a look.