Stage to Thunder Rock

Stage to Thunder Rock is directed by William F. Claxton and written by Charles Wallace. It stars Barry Sullivan, Marilyn Maxwell, Scott Brady, Lon Chaney Jr., Anne Seymour, John Agar, Wanda Hendrix, Ralph Taeger and Keenan Wynn. Music is by Paul Dunlap and cinematography by W. Wallace Kelley.

Pretty friendless in the Western loving pantheon of 1960s offerings, Stage to Thunder Rock does have strong character dynamics on its side. Forget any hope of scintillating action or even of a good use of the Technicolor/Techniscope tools afforded the piece, and instead prepare for a character based tale about a number of disparate characters holed up at a Stageline Station. Here is the crux of the matter, there's money at the root of all evil here, and although it is hardly something new in Westerns, this assortment of characters makes for a very interesting group dynamic.

The old sheriff forced to deal with something from his past that gnaws away at him, the young daughter who just wants to escape the humdrum of her life, the hired bounty hunter who needs money for his blind daughter. The weary Station owners beset by years of mismanagement soon to lose their business, the elder daughter with a past that's being used against her, and the outlaw in cuffs desperate to get away from his captor. In the middle of them all is fifty thousand dollars and the prospect of reward money for the outlaw and the man who is riding in to save him. All parties have reasons to err on the side of bad, who will turn? Who will survive the night? It's these questions that keeps the picture watchable.

The tech credits aren't up to much and without doubt this isn't a must see for Western purists, but it has human value enough to warrant it as being a decent time waster. 6/10

Just don't make 'em any more. Will be appreciated more as time passes, these low budget classics will be really loved a hundred years from now. Well written and acted, authentic 'Western' feel and dealing with timeless issues.

AC Lyle' productions did not provide only masterpieces, far from that. There were some better than others though, and this one belongs to the top of the basket, as we say in France. Good, sensitive character study, with Scott Brady in an interesting role, I would say ambivalent, in this role of a hired gun, a very tired gunman searching some extra dol to help his blind daughter. It is a rather good Lyles productions western, I repeat, rather downbeat but in the same time in search for some unlikely hope. Director Bill Claxton was not particularely known for his ambition, and this one may sound slightly better than usual. Good little western gem; don't get scared by this AC Lyles' stuff better than usual.

In the 1960s, producer A.C. Lyles made a long string of low-budget westerns featuring stars well past their peak. Because these folks and the supporting actors were so old, the films were sometimes a bit silly and I've heard a couple folks (including me) referring to them as 'Geezer westerns'. Compared to many of his film, "Stage to Thunder Rock" isn't all that old--as the leading man (Barry Sullivan) is only 52--making him practically a teenager in A.C. Lyles' world! As for the rest of the cast, several Lyles veterans appear in this one including Lon Chaney Junior (who is in just about every Lyles film from the 60s), John Agar, Robert Strauss, Allan Jones, Scott Brady, Marilyn Maxwell and Keenan Wynn--all folks were had seen better days in their careers. The average age of these folks...probably about 55 or more! Despite the budget and advanced ages, however, most of these Lyles films are better than you'd expect. Would "Stage to Thunder Rock" also manage to be a decent film?

Sullivan plays an aging (what else?) sheriff whose final job involves bringing two robbers to justice. The catch--their father raised Sullivan (which is funny considering that Keenan Wynn played the father and he was about Sullivan's age). Along the way, he meets up with two different groups of folks who want to take his prisoner and collect the reward--maybe even if it involves killing the sheriff. For the most part, this is a very slow and meandering plot--one that seldom is involving or very interesting. The best of the characters is probably the one played by Chaney--the rest seem a bit more like caricatures than real people (such as Maxwell who plays the clichéd prostitute who wants to reform). All in all, not a terrible movie but certainly among Lyles' least successful westerns.

By the way, Mr. and Mrs. Swope's daughter, Sandy, was played by Morgan Brittany--and it's interesting to see this very pretty lady when she was just a kid.

The main reason I watched this obscure western just now on Netflix streaming was because since I've been reviewing movies and TV appearances of various cast members of the original "Dallas" in chronological order since mid-June when the new one on TNT premiered, I wanted to follow them to the letter so it got me now to 1964 when the second Digger Barnes-Keenan Wynn-appeared here as the father of a couple of adult sons who were involved in a robbery and had also once taken in a now-sheriff (Barry Sullivan) as a youngster who's now got one of those sons in handcuffs having killed the other one. This was quite a compelling B-oater with notable players like Lon Chaney, Jr., Marilyn Maxwell, and-since I always like to cite whenever a player from my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, is in something else-Angentina Brunetti as the American Indian, Sarita. Oh, and I just found out another "Dallas" connection: Katherine Wentworth herself, Morgan Brittany-who, as a pre-teen here, was credited by her real name, Suzanne Cupito-played a blind girl named Sandy Swope. So on that note, I consider Stage to Thunder Rock well worth a look.