This is one of McCrea’s better westerns from the late 1950s, like Trooper Hook and Gunsight Ridge (both also from 1957). The print I saw (on Amazon) was both grainy and inconsistent in color, and it’s obviously in need of restoration. This is can be hard to find now, since it’s not on DVD, but it is worth watching. Louis with no husband (kind of like Anne Baxter in Three Violent People), she and Bannon appear to have a future together. Although Ellen reveals that she has a sordid past in St. In the end, Bannon, presumably the new owner of the ranch and the valley, offers to let the wagon train stay and build a town. Bishop gets Zarata but is himself mortally wounded. After a protracted siege, Bannon and Bishop use a makeshift smokescreen to allow Bishop’s men to escape from the bunkhouse and get weapons, swinging the battle in their favor. Now Bannon knows that Harper plans to use the settlers and Zarata to take over the valley, and Harper and Zarata’s men attack the ranch. Bannon takes Ellen and son back to Bishop’s ranch, where they are doctored by Bishop’s cook Charley (Michael Pate). Young widow Ellen (Virginia Mayo) defends herself and her son. Bannon fights Zarata and seems to be winning, until Zarata grabs Ellen’s son and uses him as a shield, breaking the boy’s arm. Ellen is bathing in a stream when she is attacked by Zarata (Michael Ansara), leader of Harper’s rustlers he has a gold-plated rifle and fancy spurs. Judson is killed, although Bannon sees that she was shot from behind with a hollow-point bullet-the same kind with which he had been ambushed. Harper goads Red into drawing his gun and shoots him in the melee that follows, Mrs. Bannon has to fight Bishop before Bishop will listen to him at all, but Bannon persuades Bishop to give him three days to talk the wagon train into leaving the valley.īishop approaches the wagon train with Stark (Leo Gordon, in a rare good guy role), Bishop’s foreman, and Red. During the recent war, Bishop’s only son Billy had joined Quantrill’s Missouri border raiders, and Bannon had led the Union cavalry that captured him, among others of Quantrill’s men. Bannon is unlikely to get much of a welcome from the local cattle baron Hardy Bishop (Barry Kelley), his half-brother. He finds that they are led by a man named Harper (George Neise), and, although they think they are going to California, they are far south of the normal trail, heading for Bishop Valley, from which there is no good trail farther west. Ned Bannon (Joel McCrea) returns home from the war to have it out with his brother (Barry Kelley). Bannon was wearing parts of a Union uniform, and most of them are southerners and former Confederates. There is some hostility toward him among members of the wagon train. He wakes up in a wagon heading west a wagon train had found him, and Ellen (Virginia Mayo), a widow with a young son, had found room for him. All he saw of his assailant was a gold-plated rifle, along with fancy spurs. Ned Bannon (Joel McCrea) is heading home to Bishop Valley in Colorado Territory from the Civil War, when he spots rustlers and one of them ambushes him, shooting him and killing his horse. But he is still Joel McCrea, and, like Gary Cooper, he can still hold our attention and make us forget about his age. The stranger of the title is played by Joel McCrea, coming toward the end of his career, and he’s a bit long in the tooth for the role he plays in this combination wagon train-range war story with a convoluted plot based on a story by Louis L’Amour. The Tall Stranger-Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Barry Kelley, Michael Ansara, Whit Bissell, Leo Gordon, George Neise, Michael Pate, Ray Teal (1957 Dir: Thomas Carr)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |