Average inexpensive Western.
Joel McCrae is Bat Masterson, saloon owner and now sheriff, newly elected to put an end to the cowboys who come to town on weekends to hoorah the place and frighten the dickens out of the good folk, like Doc John McIntire and Julie Adams, the purty preacher's daughter.
It resembles so many other routine Westerns of the period that they're all jumbled together in my head so I think I'll skip the details of the plot. They're not important anyway. You'll have no trouble distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys after the first few minutes. This isn't the kind of movie that humanizes either the hero or his enemies. Ambiguity? Streng Verboten! As for that titular "shoot out", McCrae has just been "called out" by his evil rival for the sheriff's office. Julie Adams begs him not to go. "I don't want to go," he replies, "but I've got to. That's the difference between an animal and a man." Something like that anyhow. Maybe it was, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," or, "Some things a man can't ride around." He confesses to being scared but I don't know why. The two rivals walk towards each other down the dusty and deserted street. "You call it," one of them says. And BANG and you-know-who is lying on the ground. It's all over with in about two minutes.
The real Bat Masterson had nothing to be afraid of. Maybe he didn't wind up with the breathtaking Julie Adams under the same blanket, which is too bad for him, but he did act, I think, as Time Keeper at some heavyweight championship boxing match, didn't he? I believe there is a photo of him at ringside. He's wearing a derby.
Joel McCrae didn't do badly either. He made his exit after a splendid early Pekinpah movie and spent his adult life married to the estimable Frances Dee. He seemed like a nice guy too and deserved his decent career.
Joel McCrae is Bat Masterson, saloon owner and now sheriff, newly elected to put an end to the cowboys who come to town on weekends to hoorah the place and frighten the dickens out of the good folk, like Doc John McIntire and Julie Adams, the purty preacher's daughter.
It resembles so many other routine Westerns of the period that they're all jumbled together in my head so I think I'll skip the details of the plot. They're not important anyway. You'll have no trouble distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys after the first few minutes. This isn't the kind of movie that humanizes either the hero or his enemies. Ambiguity? Streng Verboten! As for that titular "shoot out", McCrae has just been "called out" by his evil rival for the sheriff's office. Julie Adams begs him not to go. "I don't want to go," he replies, "but I've got to. That's the difference between an animal and a man." Something like that anyhow. Maybe it was, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," or, "Some things a man can't ride around." He confesses to being scared but I don't know why. The two rivals walk towards each other down the dusty and deserted street. "You call it," one of them says. And BANG and you-know-who is lying on the ground. It's all over with in about two minutes.
The real Bat Masterson had nothing to be afraid of. Maybe he didn't wind up with the breathtaking Julie Adams under the same blanket, which is too bad for him, but he did act, I think, as Time Keeper at some heavyweight championship boxing match, didn't he? I believe there is a photo of him at ringside. He's wearing a derby.
Joel McCrae didn't do badly either. He made his exit after a splendid early Pekinpah movie and spent his adult life married to the estimable Frances Dee. He seemed like a nice guy too and deserved his decent career.