I think my summary quote might have been more appropriate for Bill Bixby's character Johnsy Boy after the old rifleman came on the scene for a little payback with the branding iron. Man, wasn't that some crazed way to go out? About as good as Frank Gorshin describing the incident to his buddies at the Two Butt Saloon. It looked like Gorshin was still stuck on his Riddler character from the Batman TV series of the mid-Sixties.
So I just watched two Westerns back to back that ended with unsatisfying conclusions. The other one was "Will Penny" starring Charlton Heston. I guess one could make a case for Jonas Trapp (Chuck Connors) riding off into the sunset without his wife considering what happened here, but he went to a lot of trouble for nothing. Not that the revenge angle didn't play out satisfactorily enough, but he should have figured after eleven years gone, nobody was going to hang around waiting for him to show up again.
This is one of those movies where it seems like the roles were handed out by drawing names from a hat. The casting is really eclectic, with players like Connors, Bixby, Gorshin, Michael Rennie, Kathryn Hays, Joan Blondell, Gloria Grahame, Claude Akins and Paul Fix. The Western movie character actors all made sense, but the rest looked a little out of place. Even the opener was a little strange with the modern day setting resolving to a flashback to reminisce about La Noche del Tigre, the Night of the Tiger.
But at least it had that great bar room brawl with Claude Akins up against Connors; that was one of the more memorable ones you'll find in a Western. It certainly felt more realistic than Connors knocking out Buddy Baer with one punch. You know, I'm still thinking about the cast list, and it brings to mind a picture made a decade later called "The Night They Took Miss Beautiful". That one had Gary Collins, Henry Gibson, Victoria Principal, and Phil Silvers, and right in the middle of it all was a guy who's name was pulled out of a hat - Chuck Connors.
So I just watched two Westerns back to back that ended with unsatisfying conclusions. The other one was "Will Penny" starring Charlton Heston. I guess one could make a case for Jonas Trapp (Chuck Connors) riding off into the sunset without his wife considering what happened here, but he went to a lot of trouble for nothing. Not that the revenge angle didn't play out satisfactorily enough, but he should have figured after eleven years gone, nobody was going to hang around waiting for him to show up again.
This is one of those movies where it seems like the roles were handed out by drawing names from a hat. The casting is really eclectic, with players like Connors, Bixby, Gorshin, Michael Rennie, Kathryn Hays, Joan Blondell, Gloria Grahame, Claude Akins and Paul Fix. The Western movie character actors all made sense, but the rest looked a little out of place. Even the opener was a little strange with the modern day setting resolving to a flashback to reminisce about La Noche del Tigre, the Night of the Tiger.
But at least it had that great bar room brawl with Claude Akins up against Connors; that was one of the more memorable ones you'll find in a Western. It certainly felt more realistic than Connors knocking out Buddy Baer with one punch. You know, I'm still thinking about the cast list, and it brings to mind a picture made a decade later called "The Night They Took Miss Beautiful". That one had Gary Collins, Henry Gibson, Victoria Principal, and Phil Silvers, and right in the middle of it all was a guy who's name was pulled out of a hat - Chuck Connors.