Money, Women and Guns (1958)

A better than average western programmer with an excellent cast of character actor veterans, including Kim Hunter, Lon Chaney, William Campbell, James Gleason, Phillip Terry, and Don Megowan. Jock Mahoney gives a very natural performance as the lead character. The story and dialogue are also a step above for this type of film, as is the direction. If you think you have the plot figured out after the first 10 minutes of the film, well, keep watching. If you enjoy this type of B-movie western, with more brains than bullets, you'll have fun!

This Western is a great example of what was good in old fifties Westerns, compared to the Hollywood tripe the control freaks shoved down our throats after about 1965.It's a Western murder mystery complete with fantastic scenery. The only drawback is that the hero's outfit never gets dusty. But that's okay.In the mid sixties, the control freaks wanted to "fix" what wasn't broke by trying to claim their realistic dust was enough for realism, but they gave the worst of both worlds by giving us the most idiotic one dimensional caricatures ever.Here, we go through a more realistic series of characters. No "super demi god" Greek characters, though the hero has the demi god attributes. Still, he isn't traditional Greek hero. He doesn't butcher people for no motivation the way Odysseus and other Homeric legends did.In effect, the hero here, while being much like a small portion of the better fifties heroes, was actually an "anti-hero", a truer "anti-hero" than we had ever gotten. The fifties gave us a small segment of this man who actually attempted to have some morality. Before and after the fifties, we got almost none of this. And to be honest, even in the fifties, this was not a majority of heroes, even in the Westerns. John Wayne, Audie Murphy, William Holden, even Joel and Randolph usually played "outlaws reforming" more than "guys seeking good from an early age".Now, the story. An old miner is held up by three masked men. Two of them are homicidal gun crazy brothers, who issue his mortal wounds at the cost of his own life. The third is the first to be shot, but not seriously. He winds up being one of the five names the old man writes in his final will and testament. He makes this known in a final gasp to another old friend who hears the shots and comes by to find him."Quit it Judas" becomes a great switch ending line in this film that actually shows lots of character in its characters. Unlike the "control freak era" of Westerns, we get much more credible characters instead of the "bubble boy Beavis and Butthead" spaghetti nonsense of people acting like the smell of guts and corpses is good to drink coffee to.Why does this matter? Because we get the impression there is more action than there really is. We are fascinated and drawn in by this collection of characters, and fooled into thinking there is more action, even though there is so little bloodshed, and even less cockeyed bravery in the face of guns.While the control freaks of the late sixties onward would make idiotic Westerns where everyone killed everyone else (makes you wonder how the West could have a population over "1"), their "hate mongering" became tedious and boring compared to what we get in real Westerns like this.

The title itself just about sums up Hollywood film production. Kidding aside, this Western's got a number of nice touches, and with a more involved director (Bartlett) and dynamic lead (Mahoney), could have gelled into a genuine sleeper. It's got an unusual mystery premise for a Western— detective Hogan has to figure out which beneficiary killed the wealthy old miner— as well as a cast of former A-players— Chaney, Drake, Evans, Gleason, and Terry. But especially, there's Kim Hunter who only a few years earlier picked up a heavyweight Oscar for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).I suspect it's a better than the average B-production because of studio (Universal) backing. That backing leads to some scenic locations, fine color photography, and the supporting cast of familiar faces. Also, the unconventional script contains some nice ironies, along with a few surprises. In fact, calling this a pacifist Western may not be too much of a stretch.Mahoney certainly looks the part of a Western hero, but unfortunately more or less walks through his part in a perfectly tailored outfit. Then too, director Bartlett does nothing to draw us further into the story-- as a result, we remain on the outside, looking in. Anyway, it remains a Western of fine visuals with an unusual storyline, despite the two central drawbacks.

This was a fair western but Jock and Tim Hovey worked well together. He finally got his chance to show his stuff. Actually, my mom's favorite western was "Slim Carter" about a man changing his ways over a kid. Mr. Mahoney was in a lot of movies but for a long time you never saw his face, just his riding skill on a white horse. Eventually he was shown as a Texas Ranger chasing the Durango Kid over rooftops and finally jumping off a roof onto the white horse. Part of the time Jock was literally chasing himself. My favorite DK series was "Bandits of El Dorado". There were so many well known names..John Dehner,Fred Sears, Lewis, and of course...Clayton Moore, whose voice I recognized instantly as the future Lone Ranger. In the movie of this subject, Jock looked like a powerful man, large shoulders small waist, and could ride a horse like he was part of it. Thanks for letting me share.