The Quick Gun (1964)

This movie should be a mandatory viewing for all students in the various theatrical curriculum in Universities. The directing is very, very poor (to say the least) having Murphy, Anders, and others perform in a stilted, confined manner. The "tough guy", Ted de Corsia, constantly overacts to the point of being obnoxious at times. Most of the extras look like they were recruited from the home for the aged just prior to filming, with some seemingly enjoying their first time as an actor/actress. What I find amazing is that at nights the entire "town" has more lighting then in any normal sunny day. The clothes everyone is wearing appears to have been cleaned and pressed just prior to that scenes filming. Perspiration drenched clothes are dry and well pressed in what is supposed to be the next scene a few minutes later. The close up camera work is OK, but there are far too many wide shots that don't fit the action of the time. Merry Anders is a beautiful person; but the outstanding hairdo could not possibly have been accomplished during the time frame the movie represents. And on and on and on… Unbelievable!!! I like both Audie Murphy and Merry Anders very much as performers. They certainly didn't deserve to be displayed in this shoddy film. The movie could have been excellent, but it was just the opposite, I'm very sorry to comment.

This film opens with gunslinger Clint Cooper heading back to his home town of Shelby, Montana. Before he can get there he runs into Jud Spangler and his band of outlaws; Spangler is planning to head into Shelby and rob the bank. Spangler invites Clint to join him stating that he has reasons for going into town alone; after a brief confrontation Clint gets away and heads into Shelby. He is clearly not welcome there any more; we learn that he left after a shoot out that left two brothers dead; their father Tom Morrison and his nephew Rick are still determined to see Clint die. Clint warns his old friend Sheriff Scotty Grant that Spangler is going to attack soon. As the town prepares for Spangler's arrival Clint must deal with both the Morrisons and the fact that the woman he loved is now engaged to Scotty.This is a fairly standard Audie Murphy western; his character very similar to those he usually plays; the likable but misunderstood man who is quick with his gun. The plot is fairly simple with no unexpected twists but that doesn't really matter as it was fun to watch. There was plenty of decent action including shoot outs and a thrilling scene where Clint and Rick fight with baling hooks! As Spangler attacks the town a surprising number of townsfolk are gunned down and it is clear that his intentions towards the women are less than honourable. Murphy does a good job as Clint but Ted de Corsia steals the show as Spangler; a bit of a pantomime villain but a lot of fun to watch. Merry Anders put in a feisty performance as love interest Helen Reed; although her scenes with Spangler were more interesting that the potential love triangle involving Clint and Scotty. While this was obviously a fairly cheap B western it was still an enjoyable way to pass a quiet afternoon.

"The Last Man On Earth" director Sidney Salkow's "The Quick Gun" ranks as one of Audie Murphy's lesser efforts. Nevertheless, western movie fans may find it tolerably entertaining as a B-movie horse opera with enough noisy gun play, clattering hoof beats, and dead bodies to compensate for all its dusty clichés. Audie plays Clint Cooper, a swift-shooting son of a six-gun who returns to the quiet frontier town of Shelby, two years after he shot it out with an influential rancher's two sons, to work the ranch that his deceased dad left him. Along the trail to Shelby, Clint runs into outlaw leader Jud Spangler and his gang of trigger-happy hard-cases. Spangler plans to raid Shelby, rob the bank brimming with cattle money, drink the town dry and carry off the women folk. When Clint and Jud (veteran tough guy Ted de Corsica of "Nevada Smith") tangle early on, we know half of everything that will transpire in this predictable but bloodthirsty oater. It seems that Jud and Clint were old pals that are now on opposite ends of the gun barrel. Clint escapes from Jud's army of pistoleros and rides to Shelby to warn Sheriff Wade (James Best before "The Dukes of Hazzard"). Meanwhile, one of Clint's vengeful enemies Tom Morrison (pot-bellied Walter Sande of "Bad Day at Black Rock") wants to settle an old score between them. Clint gunned down two of Tom's sons before he rode out two years ago, and Tom refuses to let anything stand in his way when it comes to payback. At the same time, Sheriff Wade has herded all the women and children into the local church and the remaining townspeople have erected a barricade across Main Street and doused it with kerosene to discourage Spangler's gun-hands. Were that not enough drama, the town's schoolmarm—Helen Reed (Merry Andrews of "Women of the Prehistoric Planet")—plans to wed Wade until she lays eyes on Clint and second thoughts plague her. The surprises are few and far between in "Utah Blaine" scenarist Robert E. Kent's saddle sore screenplay, but he serves up a passel of quotable dialogue. Surprises aren't what count here, it's the complications that give "The Quick Gun" its fleeting edge. As the townspeople are erecting the barricade, Tom and his nephew jump Clint in the barn and try to string him up. As a result, our hero is compelled to kill them. Wade arrives in time to disarm Clint and haul him off to jail, even when they need everything gun that they can lay their hands on. Unshaven Ted de Corsica is more obnoxious than intimidating, but he chews the scenery with such gusto that you actually look forward to seeing him. Murphy plays his usual,tight-lipped protagonist. Murphy's stuntman gets a good workout, especially in one scene when he leaps from a second-story balcony and hits the ground running. Clocking in at a brisk 87 minutes, "The Quick Gun" doesn't wear out its welcome and a higher-than-average body count gives it more menace than most American oaters made 1964 typically had before the advent of the spaghetti western. Seasoned western director Sidney Salkow doesn't waste a lot of time getting around to the gun play. The ending has a "High Noon" quality to it.

Director Sidney Salkow made quite a few westerns over the course of his career, and the one thing they have in common is that none of them are particularly good. If you want to see why, then watch this picture. Salkow has no sense of pacing whatsoever (a trait even more evident in his "Sitting Bull" from 1954, which has to be among the most disjointed pictures ever made). Stuff happens, then nothing happens for a while, then stuff happens again, then nothing happens for a while again, and so on, and so on, and so on. That describes this picture pretty much to a T, and what's even worse is that, unlike many of Salkow's other westerns, this one actually has a cast of experienced western actors in roles both large and small: James Best, Frank Ferguson, Rex Holman, Rick Vallin, Frank Gerstle and Mort Mills, among others, have done good work in other westerns, and Audie Murphy is earnest as always, but there's not much they can do with this. They try hard, but Salkow's limp direction and the drivel they're forced to recite kill whatever small chances there may have been of making something out of nothing. Even though the plot is somewhat tired, good--or even halfway competent--writing could have made this picture at least watchable. The writing here is laughable hack work, just cliché piled on top of cliché, overheated dramatics, eye-rolling villainy--it seems more like a William S. Hart western from 1915 than an Audie Murphy western from 1964. The last part of the picture picks up a bit--"picks up" being a relative term, considering that virtually nothing has happened up to that point--when the outlaw gang attacks the town, but even that isn't in the least exciting. Salkow's tenuous skills as a filmmaker completely evaporate when the "action" starts (again, check out his 1954 "Sitting Bull") and this picture is no exception--a few desultory gunshots and a bad guy falls off his horse, another gunshot or two and a townsman falls down (it's hard to tell if it's because he was "shot" or if he just dropped from exhaustion--the outlaws and the townsmen in this picture have to be among the OLDEST people to engage in a gun battle in the history of westerns) and the same thing is pretty much repeated for the next eight or ten minutes. There's no sense of excitement, danger, or anything other than boredom. In the end, of course, everything works out exactly as you knew it would, but it's not really worth sitting through this dull, lumbering mess to have your suspicions confirmed.