A Man Alone (1955)

Ray Milland directed a film himself for the first time with this, and not a bad effort too. He had a rather up and down career as an actor and continued in the same vein as director.Gunfighter Milland is lost and on foot in the desert, stumbles across a stagecoach with its occupants brutally murdered and as it transpired, robbed. He makes it to the nearest town, is shot at by a deputy sheriff who should really have stuck to driving trains, then witnesses and gets accused of a cold-blooded murder, goes on the run and holes up in a young lady's house whose sheriff father is quarantined with yellow fever. Should he stay or should he go? With Love potentially in the air you know the answer to that. So, now with plenty of time for moralistic asides and romance he tries lamely to clear his name. It's sound and simple fare expertly done and an engrossing oater which also manages to lightly analyse duty (or dooty as Ward Bond might say), justice, hypocrisy and redemption. Poor old Raymond Burr got saddled once again with the deranged baddies part. The Gun is usually the final judge and jury in these kind of Westerns, however not so here - and it ends like a TV episode of Bonanza with the suddenly contented people rolling by like clouds.Refreshingly any blurred lines that are introduced are not allowed; this film is straightforward in every department with all the generally accepted correct morality boxes ticked by the end and well worth watching because of that.

I was surprised to see that Ray Milland not only starred in this western, he directed it! The fact that a British man would star in an American western, however, did not surprise me. After all, if a Tasmanian (Errol Flynn) could star in one--why not Milland--especially since his Welsh accent was pretty faint. Plus, since the US is a country of immigrants, there MUST have been a few Brits in the Old West. However, I am sure none of them had a name like 'Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones' (Milland's actual given name)! "A Man Alone" is helped along by having a couple really good heavies--Raymond Burr (a familiar heavy of the 50s until he struck gold playing Perry Mason) and a young Lee Van Cleef (who was always menacing). These two automatically improves the movie from the onset. Ward Bond, a wonderful character actor is on hand to play the sick Sheriff. Plus, while he's not especially well-known today, Milland was a dandy actor (at least until his later years when, like Bette Davis, he would accept ANY part--and a few were pretty bad). Here he's still in his prime--a good, solid leading man--not the macho or romantic type--just a good everyman actor--and a far cry from his sophisticated image of the 1930s.This film starts off very sad. Milland is riding his horse in the middle of the American desert when he comes upon a party from a stage coach--and all of them, including the children, have been murdered. When Milland comes into town, the Deputy Sheriff sneaks up on him--Milland turns and shoots (wounding him). Now the town thinks HE was responsible for the massacre--not realizing some of the town's 'upstanding citizens' were the guilty parties. Milland discovers this but no one believes him. It's up to Milland to clear himself and ferret out the guilty parties by the end of the film.There is a major cliché that hinders the film from being one of the best westerns of the day. When Milland hides out, he just happens to hide out in the home of the Sheriff. While the Sheriff is delirious with fever, there is his pretty daughter in the home as well. When she discovers him and realized everyone is looking for him, she shelters him from the posse!!! Why would a woman do this--particularly the Sheriff's daughter?! This makes no sense--and I wish they'd not relied on such a phony plot device as this. And, when she inexplicably falls in love with him, it seems even more phony.Another cliché comes into play later in the film when Milland has his showdown with the leader of the murders (Burr). Burr refuses to draw his gun, so Milland throws away his advantage and his a fist fight! First, in a fight I am sure that the big and burly Burr would have won. Second, any SANE man would have shot out Burr's kneecaps or put a bullet in his brain--that's the only 'fair fight' that really took place in the West. The fist fight cliché is just sloppy writing.However, the film is entertaining and it does take a few nice detours apart from the clichés. As a result of good acting and part of the writing being good (only part), it is very watchable. Just don't expect a lot and you'll be happy with the results.By the way, Alan Hale is listed in the credits. This is actually Alan Hale, Jr. ('Skipper' from "Gilligan's Island")--not his famous character actor father (who was usually billed as 'Alan Hale').

This movie is barely watchable. Several times I almost shut it off. Writing this review was the only thing that kept me watching. I was suckered into watching it because of a great cast, including Ray Milland, Raymond Burr, Ward Bond and Lee Van Cleef. Not bad, right? Wrong. Also my Comcast on screen guide gave it three stars out of four, when it should have had just one star.The biggest problem is the implausibility of most of the plot. Through a series of preposterous coincidences, Wes Steele, a notorious gunfighter, finds himself falsely accused of the murder of six people in a small town.Even more preposterously, he is harbored in the town by the Sheriff's daughter, who proceeds to fall in love with him in less than 24 hours, despite the fact that he is at least 30 years older than her and provides no evidence that he is not responsible for the killings.A half hour into the movie it would have been clear to a five year old exactly how all the conflicts were going to be resolved. This resulted in the movie having zero dramatic tension.Wes, although a notorious gunfighter, is a copycat of Gregory Peck's character in "The Gunfighter", which was released five years before this movie. Implausibly, he's a "good guy" who's never killed anyone except in self defense, is running away from his reputation blah blah blah. Like Peck's Ringo Kid, he is engaged in massive self pity party about how tough his life is because of his "name".Of course, for no apparent reason he announces almost immediately to the girl that he is none other than the famous gunfighter, Wes Steele. Later in the movie, he continues to share this information with just about anyone else who will listen It would have been very easy and consistent with the presentation of his character to keep that information to himself, but then that would make sense and be out of step with the movie, which makes no sense.And exactly how in 1880's Arizona did people keep their shirts so perfectly pressed? Especially after they've wandered for days through the desert with only a canteen and a gun on them? Amazing.The movie also lacks several things I like to see in a Western, like outdoor locations. This was shot almost 100 pct in Burbank. In the opening scene, Milland almost knocks over one of the fake cacti on the set. Hilarious.There are no Indians, except a crude reference to possible murdering Apaches on the loose. There are a couple of Mexican characters, who are treated with no respect or humanity.I'd say the most interesting thing about this movie was the presence of Alan Hale, honing his acting skills in preparation for his future as the Skipper in Gilligan's Island.Also, it was interesting to note that both Hale and Mary Murphy had later guest appearances on Burr's TV show "Ironside" and on Bond's TV show "Wagon Train". I guess those guys took care of their own.It was also interesting that Alan Hale played one of the three avenging brothers in "The Gunfighter", a film in which Gregory Peck played an identical character to Wes Steele of "A Man Alone".

Just a brief correction on the above comments: A Man Alone was *not* Milland's only directoral experience. He also directed Lisbon (also starred and produced), The Safecracker (U.K., also starred), Panic in the Year Zero! (also starred) and Hostile Witness (U.K., also starred). Although solid pictures, none of these films made a strong impact on Milland's career.