FILM REVIEW OF ''EASY RIDER" (1969)

Watching Dennis Hopper’s classic, counterculture, road trip “Easy Rider” (1969) co-starring Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, you may wonder what made this movie such a zeitgeist for its time.  Of course, the America of 1969 was turbulent in ways that seem a far cry from contemporary America.  The divisive Vietnam war dominated the headlines. Civil Rights activism had culminated with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, and hippie movement with all its flower power had flourished. Reportedly, after Columbia Picture's chief executive Leo Jaffe saw “Easy Rider,” he observed, "I don't know what the f*&k this picture means, but I know we're going to make a f*&k of a lot of money." When you look at the film, the simple plot amounts to little more than a picaresque journey, with our protagonists on a cross-country trip from California to Florida.  They pause along the way to meet a variety of people: a rancher, a commune, hostile Southern diners, and Florida duck hunters who have a blast.  Essentially, “Easy Rider” is a fish-out-of-water fable, with Captain America (Peter Fonda of “The Victors”) and Billy (Dennis Hopper of “Rebel Without a Cause”) as the fish-out-of-water. At the time that it was made, Dennis Hopper was a noted character actor.  Peter Fonda had starred in a few American International drive-in movies, most notably “The Wild Angels,” and Jack Nicholson of “The Raven” was earning his living as a character actor, too.  “Easy Rider” made star of all three.  Arguably, Nicholson went the farthest. Indeed, Nicholson is the heart of “Easy Rider.”  Simultaneously, Nicholson’s small-time lawyer George Hanson inhabits both world: the establishment and the counterculture. Nicholson has the best lines, too.  The meditation that he provides on the meaning of ‘freedom’ are point-on, brilliant. He explains to Billy that Wyatt and he represent a threat to Americans who had pigeon-holed by society’s expectation. Sadly, when Nicholson exits “Easy Rider,” the film never recovers from his passing.  Lenser László Kovács makes everything look spectacular, with our heroes tooling through gorgeous landscapes straight out of vintage westerns.  The source music from Bob Dylan, Roger McGuinn, Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Fraternity of Man, The Electric Prunes, Smith, and The Byrds enhance the scenes, especially Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild” as our heroes hit the road.  Although American International Pictures and other low-budget film companies had exploited “The Wild One” to produce scores of yarns about violent, murderous bikers, “Easy Rider” departs from that formula.  Wyatt and Billy are unarmed and don’t go searching for trouble.  Interestingly, Hopper had filmed a chase with DEA helicopters in hot pursuit of Wyatt and Billy.  Scenes like this would had imitated past motorcycle movies and detracted from the film’s message.  Hopper lensed “Easy Rider” as if it were a documentary, with real-life locals are supporting characters.  Furthermore, he filmed everything on location, using natural light.  The jail cell that Wyatt and Billy occupy with George Hanson is the actual deal. 

Peter Fonda was no stranger to motorcycles when he made "Easy Rider" with Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. This seminal saga cost roughly $360-thousand and reaped $60-million at the box office. Basically, "Easy Rider" is all about intolerance and the Generation Gap in America during the 1960s. A couple of hippies sell cocaine to a wealthy gent (Phil Spector) and then set out for Mari Grais in New Orleans. Along the way, they pick up an alcoholic lawyer, George Hanson (Jack Nicholson of "The Terror") and rednecks ridicule them as they try to eat in a cafe.  Although the older men deride our heroes, the young, impressionable girls in another booth idolize them. Later, these evil rednecks attack our heroes in the wild, and beat the lawyer to death. "Easy Rider" is a forerunner of "Deliverance." In "Easy Rider," rednecks slaughter the angelic but stoned motorcyclists, while the rednecks rape the sportsmen in "Deliverance." Since Hollywood could not depict back rape back in the 1960s, particularly man-on-man--sadistic homosexuality, the rednecks simply beat them up. Captain America (Peter Fonda) and Billy encounter intolerance from traditional society and die as a consequence of being too different. This is liberal, gonzo film-making at its zenith and it exerted considerable effect on Hollywood and the industry at large. The word is that Fonda and company smoked real marijuana on the set which reflects the indie nature of this venture. Columbia Pictures didn't understand this counter-cultural masterpiece but they embraced its millions. "Easy Rider" couldn't have come at an more opportune time in Hollywood and social history. The imagery of the film influenced the cultural landscape and it appeared at a time of deep social unrest in the post-Civil Rights era. So if the marginal plot—call it existentialism—does nothing for you, the portrait of America and the intolerance displayed toward the hippies stands as an accurate barometer of the times. "Easy Rider" couldn't have been made much earlier because the Production Code Administration had only recently been dismantled in favor of a rating classification system. Fonda and Hopper don't so much deliver believable performances as they inhabit their costumes. Jack Nicholson is simply brilliant as the doomed lawyer George Hanson who understands the moral conscience of the terrain. He summarizes this when he tells Billy, "What you represent to them is freedom." The soundtrack features many tunes of the times that immortalize this picture. For the record, Billy dies from the first shotgun blast. Despite its laid-back pace and routine plot, “Easy Rider” ranks as a landmark picture and speaks volumes about bigotry in America.

FILM REVIEW OF "LOOPER" (2012)

“Looper” (* out of ****) qualifies as a sordid science fiction thriller about time travel with an awful ending.  Stir a little H.G. Wells in with some Stephen King and add a pinch of “The Sopranos,” and you’ve got the basics of “Brick” director Rian Johnson’s contrived, unconvincing chronicle.  Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are cast as one in the same character in this disappointing actioneer that pits them against each other with a no-win outcome.  Furthermore, both protagonists emerge as more anti-heroic than heroic.  If you dismiss the fact these talented thespians bear scant resemblance to each other, you must still consider the scarcity of information about a distant future as well as a warped premise.  These shortcomings constitute the chief flaws in this imaginative but predictable sci-fi saga that unfolds in an erratic manner, lacks quotable dialogue, and features one character with no qualms about shooting innocent adolescents. By the time this uninspired, R-rated, 118-minute, spectacle has worn out its welcome; you have no reason to care about anybody, including an obnoxious telekinetic tyke who doesn’t know when to keep his trap shut.  Mind you, the future has never appeared more dystopian.  Some people are born with a mutation that enables them to levitate objects, and these fellows find that they can lure facile-minded babes into bed by making quarters float above the palms of their hands.  The economy has hit bottom, and vagrancy has become epidemic. Citizens can execute vagrants on the spot if they feel so inclined.  Any time Hollywood undertakes a time travel tale, the filmmakers conjure up some of the ugliest vehicles.  While the cars and trucks look hopelessly tacky, the motorcycles resemble something Luke Skywalker wouldn't ride.  Basically, you see a guy straddling a cylinder with handle bars.  Computer-generated special effects blur everything beneath his feet so he appears to be cruising on a cushion of air. 

Johnson’s screenplay is as amoral as his narrative premise is warped.  Imitating the best Mafia movies of director Martin Scorsese, Johnson relies on the voice-over narration of his lead character to acquaint us not only with his unusual profession but also with the seedy world where he thrives.  Kansas in the year 2044 serves as the setting.  Presumably, Johnson is making an ironic “Wizard of Oz” joke with his futuristic fable.  The premise of “Looper” is that a guy can live the high life by killing individuals from the future who have been sent back to the past.  Joseph Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt of “The Dark Knight Rises”) is a killer who was brought up the ranks by his boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels of “Blood Work”), to do his dirty work.  Actually, Abe was beamed back from the future to coordinate the equivalent of Murder Incorporated.  In the 1940s, the Mafia relied on hired gunmen from out of town to ice enemies on their own turf.  For example, if the New York Mafia wanted to dispose of an adversary, they contracted a Chicago gunsel to eliminate him.  The rationale was that the authorities always sought a motive.  What motive would a Chicago mobster have for killing New York mobster that he didn’t know?  This remained standard operating procedure until the authorities figured out the connection.  

Mobsters in the year 2074 cannot murder their adversaries because humans have become too easy to track.  Since the mob cannot kill their own, they contract hits out to mobsters from the past.  Gunman designated ‘loopers’ kill and dispose of these victims that the mob has beamed back so nobody can find them.  Our hero wields an exotic shotgun called a ‘blunderbuss,’ and the looper waits near a cornfield in the middle of nowhere with his weapon and a tarp spread on the ground.  Eventually, a bound man with a bag over his head and silver ingots strapped to his back materializes.  After he murders his prey, Joseph incinerates him so no traces remain. When a gangland assassin in the future has worn out his welcome, however, the mob sends him back to the past so he can kill himself.  They call this ‘closing the loop.’ After Young Joe botches the job of killing Old Joe, he has to dodge the bullets of his former associates—known as ‘gat-men’--until he can corner and kill himself. Losing one’s older self is referred to as ‘letting his loop run.’  Joe’s quick-witted alter-ego from the future (Bruce Willis of “Twelve Monkeys”) escapes and searches for a mysterious person code named the ‘Rainmaker.’  This enigmatic individual wants to eradicate any trace of the loopers.  Older Joe has been given a map with three possible addresses for this ‘Rainmaker.’  Joe wants to wreak vengeance on the ‘Rainmaker’ because the ladder dispatched trigger-happy gunmen who accidentally murdered his Asian wife. 

Instead of keeping things simple, Johnson complicates matters with a subplot about a kid with telekinetic powers.  Cid (Pierce Gagnon of “The Crazies”) lives on a sugar cane farm with his mom, Sara (Emily Blunt of “The Adjustment Bureau”), who runs the place by herself.  One of the locations that the Old Joe has is Sara’s farm.  He suspects Cid may be the reason that assassins are knocking themselves off.  Essentially, what we have here is a good assassin and a bad assassin who share the same body from drastically different decades.  Young Joe stakes out Sara’s farm so he can terminate Old Joe with extreme prejudice.  This uneven, poorly-plotted, high body count stinker doesn’t flow well and is often confusing, too.  Moreover, the logic is questionable.  Wouldn’t it be easier for the future mob to kill their enemies and send the remains back to the past for disposal?  Furthermore, what would happen if the victim that they sent back managed to escape like Old Joe and gum up the works?  As far as that goes, how does Abe know when a man is going to be sent back to the past. In most movies, you look for a character that you can either love or envy.  Nobody is lovable in “Looper” and parts of this movie are just plain downright dull.

FILM REVIEW OF "HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN":

Freshman director Jason Eisener’s contemporary vigilante thriller “Hobo With a Shotgun” (**** out of ****) epitomizes the essence of grindhouse movies from the 1970s and the 1980s. Grindhouse movies are typically low-brow, low-budget, politically-incorrect R-rated, epics that exploit shocking, often sensational subject matter for either high drama or comedy. Moreover, these films feature gratuitous amounts of blood, gore, profanity, sex, nudity, violence as well as sub-standard special effects. The most infamous grindhouse/exploitation movies appeared in the 1930s, including “The Road to Ruin” (1934), “Reefer Madness” (1936), “Marihuana” (1936), “Cocaine Fiends” (1935), “Child Bride” (1938), “Gambling with Souls” (1936) and “Sex Madness” (1938). A s you can imagine, the tawdry material that these movies tangled with didn't constitute polite supper table conversation. Mind you, back during the Great Depression, these movies were classified as sleazy. They are tame by today’s standards. Primarily, these movies were produced as warnings to parents and juveniles about sticking to the straight and narrow. The most controversial examples of grindhouse cinema illuminated screens during the 1970s and 1980s. These movies acquired the designation as ‘grindhouse’ because they were shown in antiquated, dilapidated theaters on the fringe. For example in Columbus, Mississippi, during the 1970s, Malco operated the Princess Theater as a grindhouse. I know because I've seen my share there. Minor Hollywood studios and foreign producers churned out these films by the hundreds. European sword & sandal sagas, Continental crime thrillers, historical hell-raisers, Spaghetti westerns, Hong Kong chop-socky epics, German & Italian cannibal adventures, American International biker flicks & teenage horror chillers, Blaxploitation movies were popular, especially with drive-in movie audiences. Many are finally being released on DVD and Blu-ray. Generally, these movies ran no longer than 90 minutes but some achieved fame, notably “Fistful of Dollars” (1964), “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), “Satan's Sadists” (1969), “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974), and “Cannibal Holocaust” (1980). If you thrive on trash cinema of the 1970s and the 1980s, then “Hobo With a Shotgun” is right up your alley. Alley is being used in a highly metaphorical sense. Rutger Hauer and Gregory Smith co-star in this overblown orgy of blood, gore, and profanity. Naked babes appear in a one scene. Indeed, nudity is largely subdued in this 86-minute, Technicolor release. Nevertheless, squeamish souls should shun this sadistic, shoot’em up that celebrates a homeless man as a hero.

An anonymous hobo (an unshaven Rutger Hauer of “Blade Runner”) arrives in Hope Town. Actually, vandals have crossed out Hope and replaced it with Scum. Beneath the town sign appears the slogan “Where the railway ends and life begins.” Those same vandals have replaced the word “life” with "Hell.” The hobo hasn'tbeen in town long before he encounters the local crime boss, The Drake (Brian Downey of the sci-fi TV show “Lexx”), and watches Drake dispense justice. “Mercy ain’t my style,” the Drake screams, decked out in an ice-cream white suit and tie with an automatic pistol wedged in his waistband. Drake and his two juvenile delinquent sons, Slick (Gregory Smith of “Small Soldiers”) and Ivan (Tom Cruise lookalike Nick Bateman), show up with pistols drawn. They surround their Uncle Logan (Robb Wells of “Trailer Park Boys, The Movie”) who pleads desperately for mercy as a crowd gathers on the scene. He begs the Hobo to cut the rope on his wrists. Drake makes Logan an example of his power to strike fear into the hearts of citizens. Logan wears a man-hole cover wrapped around his neck so he looks like his head is on a platter. Slick and Ivan deposit Logan in a man-hole, and Drake loops a barbed wire noose around his neck. Slick puts his truck in reverse and off comes Logan’s head. Afterward, Drake sticks it on the hood as a head ornament. Of course, the special effects are marginal. The blood is blatantly bogus! Meanwhile, no sooner has Logan’s head been torn from his neck than a bikini-clad babe in a white mink coat dances in the geyser of blood that erupts. If you can stomach this kind of ghoulish violence, you will love what Eisner and scenarists John Davies and Rob Cotterill have concocted.

Basically, “Hobo With a Shotgun” combines vintage town tamer westerns, such as “Fistful of Dollars,” with vigilante epics, like the Charles Bronson “Death Wish” franchise. All the poor Hobo wants is buy a $49.99 lawn mower so he can cut grass and earn money. Ironically, not a single blade of grass is in-sight in this urban sprawl. He collects aluminum cans and other assorted garbage in a grocery shopping cart, but he doesn’t get very far along in reaching his goal. Predictably, few folks ante up dimes, and the degenerate ruffians who run around leather jackets with Mohawk hair-cuts spit on him. Eventually, the public-spirited citizen hibernating within the Hobo emerges when Slick treats a defenseless hooker, Abby (newcomer Molly Dunsworth), with utter contempt and tries to assault her. Wielding his walking stick along with a sock filled with coins, the Hobo clobbers Slick and hauls him off to jail. Surprisingly, after a sympathetic police chief (Jeremy Ackerman of “K-19: The Widowmaker”) applauds the Hobo’s efforts, he turns on him and lets Slick carve the word SCUM into the Hobo’s chest. Once they finish with him, Slick and the Police Chief pitch the Hobo into the trash.

You cannot keep a good man down long. The Hobo staggers out of the trash, and Abby takes pity on him and lets him spend the night in her apartment. She gives him a sweatshirt with a bear on it and the Hobo turns into a bear of a vigilante. During a pawn shop hold-up, three hoods grab a mother and her baby in a carriage and threaten to kill them if the owner doesn’t empty his cash register. The Hobo happens to be in the pawn shop admiring the $49.99 lawn mower when this takes place. Abruptly, Hobo seizes a pump-action shotgun and splatters the three robbers with blasts to the belly. Things get so bad that Drake that tells Slick that he must establish fear in the hearts of the town. Consequently, Slick finds himself a flame-thrower and torches a school bus filled with kids. During a televised news report of his sadistic shenanigans, Slick and Ivan invade the studio and sling a skate boot so that its' blade embeds itself in the newscaster’s chest. Later, the Drake dispatches the police to exterminate all homeless people with extreme prejudice.

According to the Dread Central website, Canadian filmmaker Jason Eisner made a bogus trailer of “Hobo With a Shotgun” and entered it in director Robert Rodriguez's South by Southwest “Grindhouse” trailers competition back in 2007. The trailer won first place, and Eisner set about making the film. The Internet Movie Database has reported that this $3-million movie has made slightly more than a half-million dollars during its brief May release and has since gone onto DVD and Blu-ray. Indeed, Eisner upholds the standards of “Fistful of Dollars” and the “Death Wish” movies in terms of blood, gore and more. The Hobo cleans up the town and inspires citizens to gun down their corrupt police and reclaim the streets from them. Nevertheless, Eisner doesn’t drag out the inevitable in this formulaic actioneer. The villains are utterly despicable and deserve the worst that they receive. Eisner leaves little to the imagination, and some of the action is so ramped up that you want to laugh rather than cringe. Despite its entirely depraved subject matter, “Hobo With a Shotgun” delivers more enthusiasm and action than most big-screen fare. Eisner and his scenarist never the largely straightforward action bog down in a surfeit of exposition. They have pared down the plot to its extreme essentials and served it up like a shotgun blast to the belly.

FILM REVIEW OF ''WALKING TALL: THE PAYBACK" (2007)

Although Sony Studios designated it as a sequel to director Kevin Bray’s 2004 theatrical feature “Walking Tall” with Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson, “The Confidence Man” director Tripp Reed’s “Walking Tall: The Payback” (2007) with Kevin Sorbo qualifies as only an ‘in name’ sequel.

Sorbo plays a former U.S. Marine, Nick Prescott, who trains horses for living, while the Rock played Chris Vaughn. Furthermore, “Walking Tall” took place in Kitsap County, Washington, whereas “Walking Tall: The Payback” occurs in Boone County, Texas, not far from Dallas. Sorbo’s Nick totes around a big stick once for a couple of the minutes in the middle of the movie. Instead, he prefers a riot shotgun with a lever action grip to a big stick. Indeed, he uses a pool cue in the bar fight, but he never wields a club either like the Rock or much earlier as Joe Don Baker and Bo Svenson did in the previous theatrical releases.

On the other hand, “Walking Tall: The Payback” (* out of ****)explores corrupt in a small town. The screenplay by Steven Seagal collaborator Joe Halpin and newcomer Brian Strasmann borrows from Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West,” because the primary villain, Harvey Morris (A.J. Buckley) is trying to buy up land before a new highway is built through the town, and he isn’t particular about how he acquires the real estate. He walks into a hardware store with his henchmen and they smash up the owner’s arm and promise him more rough stuff if he doesn’t bow to their wishes. The opening scene shows one of Harvey’s thugs pumping gas out of the storage tank when the owner appears with gun in hand and threatens to kill the henchmen. They tangle, the henchman shoots him and the gas station owner lives long enough to touch off an explosion that wipes out everything. Later, the villains assault a city councilman on his tractor in his crop field and torch the tractor. When a waitress warns our heroes that the villains intend to force the city council to appoint an interim sheriff, the villains close in on her trailer and gang rape her. “This will put a smile on your face,” they chuckle as they bend her own her sofa and sodomize her. Despite its’ R-rating, the filmmakers shy away from nudity of any kind. The same is true for the violence. You see little blood and nobody is squibbed so that bloody explosions erupt when they are shot or wounded.

Despite Kevin Sorbo’s brawny presence, A.J. Buckley’s slimy villain, and its solid production values, “Walking Tall: The Payback” is a derivative, far-fetched, superficial thriller with no surprises except its narrative lack of closure. The heroes take the primary villains to task, but they ignore the larger villains that lurk in Dallas and churn up most of the conflict between the hero and the villains. One might think that the producers would have taken up where “Walking Tall: The Payback” left off in the sequel “Walking Tall: Lone Justice,” but Andrew Stevens and director Tripp Reed explore other areas. “Walking Tall: Lone Justice” updates the main characters from the first one without probing into the treacherous sidewinders that provided support to the villains. There is one good bar fight early on in “Walking Tall: The Payback” that passes muster, and Kevin Sorbo’s hero uses a horse to good advantage in the final showdown, but this movie lacks clout. Tripp doesn’t do anything revolutionary, and the best that can be said about “Walking Tall: The Payback” is that it clocks in at 88 minutes. Some of the dialogue is catchy. For example, the villain confronts the hero: "There can only be one big dog, everybody else, they just sniff" while the hero challenges the villain: "Are you all bark and no bite?”

Our hero, Nick Prescott, has a low opinion of the law and the justice system. We learn that his wife died when an inebriated driver ran into her and killed her. Says Nick, “Justice is about two things: power and money. With them you can just about get away with anything.” Nick and his father Sheriff Charlie Prescott haven’t seen each other since his wife’s death because Nick felt that his father didn’t press the case hard enough. The drunk driver got off with a fine and community service. According to Nick, “the system is broken.” He shrugs when his father tells him that he going to see the FBI in Dallas to find a way to bring down Harvey Morris and his Dixie mafia. “You really think that you can make a difference?”

Later, Harvey and his henchmen catch Charlie on the highway, wreck his car, flip it and kill him. At the funeral, Harvey drinks a beer from afar and watches the ceremony. This aggravates Nick so much so that his father’s deputy Hap catches Nick taking a shotgun from the rifle rack. Hap tosses him a badge and assures him that as a deputy he has more leeway. Nick starts his own campaign against Harvey. A few days later, the FBI agent, who told Charlie that the felons had not broken any Federal laws, arrives and looks into matters. It seems that Charlie took a revolver that he recovered from the gas station after it blew up and gave it to Detective Pete Michaels of the Dallas PD to run a ballistics test on it. The higher powers behind Harvey in Dallas bribe Pete to send the report to Harvey and this is what prompts Harvey to kill Charlie.

“Walking Tall: The Payback” is a synthetic, redneck thriller with enough action to keep you watching while you shake your head in disbelief at the audacious things that the citizens let the villains get away with in this lackluster 94 minute melodrama. Women should be forewarned that Kevin Sorbo keeps his clothes on the entire time.

FILM REVIEW OF ''LAST TRAIN FROM GUNHILL" (1959)

The John Sturges western "Last Train from Gun Hill" is another one of those chamber westerns from the 1950s where the villains corner the hero in an urban setting and both sides have to count down to their inevitable showdown based on a ticking clock. Aside from some early scenes shot outdoors, most of "Last Train from Gun Hill" occurs within the city limits of the frontier western town of Gun Hill. Furthermore, the story pits two long-time friends, a courageous lawman Kirk Douglas against a powerful cattle baron Anthony Quinn. When the story opens neither man has seen the other in years, but both have sons. Russian composer Dimitri Tiomkin provides "Last Train from Gun Hill" with another one of his brilliant, evocative orchestral scores that enlivens the drama.

The stalwart hero, Matt Morgan (Kirk Douglas of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral"), serves as marshal in the peaceful town of Pauley. One day Matt's wife, Catherine Morgan (Ziva Rodann of "King Creole"), and their young son, (Ricky William Kelman), are on the way back from the Indian Reservation where they have just visited her father when two drunken cowpokes, Rick Belden (Earl Holliman of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") and Lee Smithers (Brian G. Hutton, future director of "Where Eagles Dare"), frighten them. Catherine whips Rick so violently that it leaves a scar on his face. Enraged, Rick runs them down, and their carriage overturns. Rick knocks aside her boy and rapes her in the woods. During the rape, Matt's son steals Rick's horse and rides back to town to alert his father. Meanwhile, Matt is in town describing a famous gun battle that took place years ago between the infamous Bradley boys and him. At a properly dramatic moment, his son coming thundering into town on the stolen horse crying his eyes out. Matt rides back to where the carriage overturned and finds the partially nude body of his raped wife who lies dead in the woods. When Matt walks back to the horse with his wife in his arms, he notices the elaborate leather saddle and raises one of the flaps. Tiomkin's score singles out this moment with a melodramatic tone when Matt discovers the initials C.B. in the saddle. He recognizes those initials and heads back to town to prepare for his journey to Gun Hill to see his own friend about the stolen horse.

At the Belden ranch, Rick and Lee return and complain to Craig Belden about the loss of Rick's horse. Craig (Anthony Quinn of "The Ride Back") could care less about the loss of the horse, but he demands that Rick find his saddle. Moreover, Craig refuses to settle for any substitute for that saddle. He makes a big deal out of it and this is the point where we see that father and son are not on the same wavelength. Later, we discover that they like to batter women. At one point, Craig's foreman Beero (Brad Dexter of "The Magnificent Seven") makes a joke about the scar on Rick's father. Craig interprets the comment as a slur on the Belden name and forces Rick to fight with Beero. Predictably, Beero knocks out Rick in no time. Craig roars about Rick not having enough pride. Win or lose, whenever anybody disgraces the name of Belden, Craig expects his son to fight back. Afterward, they share a chuckle about the 'she-bears' in Pauley, the peaceful town, where Rick lost the horse and saddle.

Matt takes the train to Gun Hill and rents a buggy to see Craig Belden. He returns the saddle to Craig, and they reminisce about old times. Craig tells Matt that his son lost the horse in Pauley, but by now Craig knows that his son raped and killed Matt's wife. Furthermore, Craig knows that nothing in the world will prevent Matt from taking Rick back in irons to stand trial. Matt returns to Gun Hill where he receives a chilly reception and Craig sends Beero and another cowpoke, Skag (Bing Russell of "The Magnificent Seven") to town to watch over Rick. Matt snoops around, then enters the saloon from the rear by a tree and catches Rick hiding behind some curtains, slugs him and takes his prisoner. The Gun Hill sheriff, Bartlett (Walter Sande of "Bad Day at Black Rock") refuses to let Matt use his jail cell until the train arrives, so Matt holes up with Rick in the local hotel. Meantime, Craig rounds up all his gunhands and they lay siege to the hotel. Craig's old girlfriend (Carolyn Jones of "The Addams Family") has just returned to Gun Hill from a long stay in the hospital. Craig uses her as a go-between, but she goes behind his back and smuggles Matt a shotgun. Neither man plans to back down in this duel of the titans.

When "Last Train to Gun Hill" appeared theatrically in 1959, interracial romances in westerns were nothing new, but this western contained a rape scene that occurred partly on camera, though by the time that Rick had ripped off Catherine's clothing, the camera has retreated to a long shot. "Last Train from Gun Hill" represented a new spate of westerns that dealt with frank subject matter because the western had encountered flak from its television counterparts and film producers were looking from material of a more adult nature. Charles Lang's cinematography is exemplary and Tiomkin's theme music knows where to highlight segments of the plot for maximum impact. John Sturges paces the momentum so that things never get boring. The speech about hanging is superb from a top-notch screenplay by James Poe. Hal Wallis produced this above-average oater for Paramount Pictures.

An excellent book to peruse if you are interested in John Sturges, his life, and his films is Glen Lovell's top-notch biography on Sturges entitled "Escape Artist: The Life and Films of John Sturges." Mr. Lovell spent 10 years writing and researching this seminal text about Sturges.

FILM REVIEW OF "3:10 TO YUMA" (1957)

"Destination Tokyo" director Delmar Daves' "3:10 to Yuma" (1957) qualifies as one of the classic suspense westerns of the 1950s. Furthermore, in the larger context of westerns, this frontier drama follows in the boot falls of "High Noon" since it concerns a showdown between hero and villain based on a time deadline. Everything about this oater is solid and realistic with strong acting by a competent cast. Composer George Duning's haunting score heightens the tension in scenarist Halsted Welles' spartan screenplay. Welles' also penned another big western "The Hanging Tree" (1959) with Gary Cooper. Welles does an exceptional job of capturing the ironic essence of Leonard's short story, the first of the bestselling author's work to reach the big-screen.

"3:10 to Yuma" opens with a close-up of parched earth somewhere in the Arizona territory. The camera tilts up to show a stagecoach crossing the landscape in long shot and then the stage swings around toward the camera and its galloping six-horse team hauls the vehicle past the camera trailing a plume of dust. Daves concisely establishes in this one take the inhospitable nature of the surroundings. One of the themes is then man versus nature. Later, we learn that a drought has devastated the area. Seasoned lyricist Ned Washington's words--as sung by vocalist Frankie Lane at his most doleful--enhances this western. An entire sub-genre of sagebrushers emerged in the 1950s that opened with images of horsemen riding through the opening credits with singers such as Frankie Lane or Tex Ritter warbling an atmospheric theme song.

Glenn Ford makes a memorable entrance as ruthless but sardonic outlaw Ben Wade. The notorious Wade gang hold up a stagecoach. During the robbery, the stage driver gets the drop on the Wade gang member atop the coach and shoves a gun into his back. The brave driver threatens to kill the Wade gang member if the outlaws don't cease and desist. No sooner has he delivered his ultimatum than Wade himself rides up and guns down his own man and the stage driver.

The hero of "3:10 to Yuma" is a small potatoes rancher, Dan Evans (Van Heflin of "Shane") who is waging a losing battle against nature for lack of rain. Dan's cattle are dying, and all our hero requires is $200 dollars so he can obtain six months water rights from a nearby rancher. Unfortunately, Dan is dirt poor. Furthermore, he is stubborn and self-reliant and balks at the idea of seeking a loan from the bank. There is nothing flashy about Heflin's performance or wardrobe. Truly, he is a hero behind the 8-ball.

After the Wade gang rob the Butterfield Stage Company of a gold shipment, they gallop brazenly into Bisbee, Arizona Territory, to alert the local constabulary about the hold-up. In the saloon, where they are drinking, they explain that they couldn't thwart the thieves. The marshal (Ford Rainy of "Flaming Star") gathers a posse, but one of them, the town drunk Alex Potter (Henry Jones of "Vertigo"), is late and rides out after the posse has left. Meanwhile, Wade disperses his gang across the border and tells them to rendezvous with him in Nogales. Wade hangs around the saloon to sweet talk young beautiful Emmy (Felicia Farr of "Charlie Varrick") and they get romantic. During this interval, the posse run into Dan and the Butterfield Stage owner. They describe the gang and the marshal realizes then that the cattle drovers back at the saloon were the Wade gang. Alex rides up and tells them that the drovers left town but one of them stayed. The posse heads back to town. Dan distracts Wade in the saloon while the marshal sneaks up behind him and arrests him. The Butterfield Stage owner (Robert Emhardt of "The Stone Killer") offers $200 to anybody that will help escort Wade to the train station for the titular three-ten to Yuma. Initially, Dan refuses but decides that the $200 dollars is worth the risk. Nobody else wants to get in on the money except Henry Potter. For the remainder of the movie, Dan and Wade share the upstairs bridal suite in the hotel while they await the train. Wade's second-in-command Charlie Prince (Richard Jaeckel of "The Dirty Dozen") rides off to prepare a reception for our hero and Wade. Eventually, the gang capture Henry Potter and string him up in the hotel. During the suspenseful wait in the hotel, Ben Wade begins to have a grudging admiration for Dan Evans. When they make dash for the train, Ben actually helps Dan out and they get aboard the train unscathed. Although this ending has been called implausible, I don't think it is anything of the sort. Ben Wade is a dangerous, egotistical killer who has the attitude of a cat playing with a mouse. He is so confident of himself that he plays along with Dan, helps him against his own gang, but ultimately you know that Ben Wade is never going to serve a day in jail. He proved at the beginning that he was willing to kill one of his own men.

"3:10 to Yuma" isn't the first time that Glenn Ford played a villainous killer. He portrayed a corrupt, maniacal judge in "The Man from Colorado," and before that he specialized in bad guys that turned good in westerns, like "Texas" and "The Desperados." Charles Lawton's stark black and white photography combined with striking camera angles that thrust us into the vortex of the action go a long way toward making the action palatable. Eventually, this drama boils down to two men shut up in an upstairs hotel room as they wait for the arrival of the "3:10 to Yuma" train. Daves and Lawton generate a lot of suspense throughout this western but none more tangible than at the end when our hero and villain approach the puffing train and are obscured by clouds of the steam while the outlaw gang stalk them