Colt .45 / Tall Man Riding / Fort Worth
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DVD details
Actor: Randolph ScottBrand: Warner
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Full Screen, PAL
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 237 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-11-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Colt .45 / Tall Man Riding / Fort Worth
DVD Review: Do it for Randolph Scott...get this set
Summary: 5 Stars
Both of the Warners Randolph Scott 3-fers are well worth owning for fans of the star or 50s westerns in general; if forced to pick just one I'd probably go for the other release: The Man Behind the Gun / Thunder Over the Plains / Riding Shotgun. But this no-frills set (decent transfers, no extras) is very nearly as good and it helps to show the richness of Scott's western filmography as well as anything up until the fabulous Budd Boetticher films at the end of the decade that capped his career so memorably. This is what you get here:
COLT .45 (1950, directed by Edwin L. Marin)
Steve Farrell (Randolph Scott) is a salesman for the Colt company, peddling the new, expensive and game-changing .45 revolver to lawmen in the 1840s. In the first scene in the film, Jason Brett (Zachary Scott), a young punk in jail on a minor charge, manages to kill the sheriff as Farrell is doing his spiel, and make off with a pair of the .45s. The wounded deputy and the rest of the town think Farrell was in cahoots with Brett and lock him up for several months, by which time Brett has blazed a trail of terror for which Farrell feels responsible - and it's time to bring him to justice. Soon he makes friends with an Indian Chief (Chief Thundercloud) whose people Brett is framing for stagecoach robberies, and manages to save a stage from a robbery - despite the attempted interference by Beth Donovan (Ruth Roman) who it turns out is being held along with her husband Paul (Lloyd Bridges) while the bandits hide out at their cabin. Farrell, meanwhile, ends up in the town of Bonanza Creek as deputy to the shady Sheriff Harris (Alan Hale), trying to figure out how to bring Brett to justice even as he is being conspired against.
This is a solid, very fast-paced affair directed by Edward Marin - who directed Randolph Scott in the same number of films that Henry Hathway did, eight - more than the better-known and more-respected Andre de Toth or Budd Boetticher. I've just seen two others (Christmas Eve and the reviewed-below FORT WORTH), and they're all competent and fast-moving b-pictures - not remarkable, but deserving of more attention than they get. This one I think is most notable for Zachary Scott's fun, sneering, absolutely amoral villain, and for the amount of time Randolph Scott spends smiling - a heckuva lot more than he ever would do for Boetticher. It's got decent color and music, and the rest of the acting is fine, but it's fairly cheap-looking, the costumes often look way off, and there are a few rather stupid moments - like the initial fight in the jail that leads to Brett getting the revolvers - that really come off as quickie ways to move the brief (74 minutes) film along rather than well-though-out narrative choices. It's also notable in having a generally positive portrayal of natives, in the same year as the much more-heralded Broken Arrow.
TALL MAN RIDING (1955, directed by Lesley Selander)
Despite the very generic title, and the relatively generic basic plotline (man seeking revenge against cattle baron who wronged him is caught in a more complex battle involving the local town's big cheese and his corrupt deputy (strangely there's no sheriff), and two women who both love or admire him), this 82-minute whip-fast specimen comes off as reasonably interesting in execution. Selander isn't a particularly exciting or inventive director, and the chase sequences and shootouts (apart from one that I'll get to) aren't any more wonderful than his tepid camerawork in the film as a whole, but the cast and the rapid pacing make up for this well enough.
Larry Madden (Scott) is the tall man who rides towards the town of Little River and his past; he's moseying along until he hears gunshots, and decides to help out in a one man against three situation, eventually shooting one of the besiegers and saving the would-be victim - who he finds out is a man from the hated Tuck Ordway's Warbonnet ranch (so much for shooting first and asking questions later). Soon we find out that Madden was once sweet on Ordway's daughter, but the old man didn't think he was good enough for her, and drove him out of town - with a whip! Likewise angry enough with Ordway to kill him is Cibo Pearlo (John Baragrey), owner of the biggest saloon in town and also possessing (in his mind at leat) Reva (Peggie Castle) whose friendship with Ordway's daughter Corinna (Dorothy Malone) complicates matters - as Madden's history with Corinna will come into play.
Boasting some fine work by John Dehner as (what else) a sleazy lawyer as well, and decent location work, TALL MAN RIDING may not be one of Scott's best films, but like everything I've seen with him in the 50s it's economical and well-crafted, somehow packing loads of action and riding back and forth, a couple of romances and a land rush sequence into it's brief running time. And it has a few standout scenes - in this case a gunfight in a dark room that's quite suspenseful, and a terrific knock-down, drag-out fight between Madden and the good-for-nothing deputy Barclay (Mickey Simpson). Oh and there's also the rather oily and nasty Peso Kid (Paul Richards) who gets a few memorable lines and a good if brief showdown in the street.
FORT WORTH (1951, directed by Edward L. Marin)
Last and I think possibly the best on this triple-decker is this newspaperman-fights-corruption story, with Scott as ex-cattleman and gunslinger Ned Britt, now a newspaper editor on his way to San Antonio to start up a new paper with partner Ben Garvin (Emerson Treacy) and their young apprentice Luther (Dickie Jones). They're travelling with a wagon train of settlers bound for Fort Worth, and at the beginning of the film they run into a couple of old acquaintances of Ned's, one welcome and the obvious love interest to-be - Flora Talbot (Phyllis Thaxter) - and the other not so welcome, troublemaker Gabe Clevenger (Ray Teal), who with his gang cause a stampede which results in a loss of life. We get an early example of this film's awesome punchy over-the-top dialogue (by John Twist - but it comes off as more than a little like Sam Fuller to me) when Clevenger tells one of his men, "he throws lead, jughead - type! And it's got plenty scatter to it."
Britt and Garvin eventually decide to detour and set up shop in Fort Worth instead of San Antonio - partly due to the charm of Ms. Talbot, and partly due to the influence of the engaging Blair Lunsford (David Brian), her fiancee. Fort Worth is hurting, it's population down, a promised railroad not coming through. But Lunsford's got great plans, and Garvin and Britt decide they're up for the challeng of running a paper in a town that NEEDS one. Unfortunately, Clevenger and his outlaw gang, an ineffective sherrif, and Lunsford himself - who isn't exactly what he seems at first - all end up causing plenty of problems, and make Britt soon unable to leave his six-guns locked away.
As I said, the dialogue here is just crackling - another good line, as Britt pushes Luther away from covering a story that's too dangerous, while strapping on his irons: "you don't cover that story with a pencil"; and referring to the man who gradually becomes his nemesis, "his crooked dream got too big for one man to hold." The action is punchy too, with a great little trick shootout at a corral - just after the first quote I gave - being a highlight. The film of course is implicitly about the coming of civilization and the taming of the west - trains and newspapers and cattlemen and cities replacing gunslingers and small towns - but it isn't terribly serious about it's themes and is mostly a great showpiece for a fine group of less well-known character actors. The 6'4" Brian is meant to be Scott's equal/opposite/dark side and does a better job of conveying this than many of Randy's adversaries in other films; Teal played a lot of scuzzy villains and does fine here; and Treacy is just wonderful as Britt's more cynical and wiser partner, who imparts some good wisdom in his short time on camera - he comes off a bit like a James Gleason character from a decade earlier. But Scott actually gets a good chunk of the most colorful dialogue and most of the best scenes, and he shows throughout why he's the star. This one doesn't add up to a lot besides just "fun", but it's a rip-roaring example of that.
Description of Colt .45 / Tall Man Riding / Fort Worth
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