A lot of 1960s B westerns turned out to be remakes of 1950s B films - especially those starring Audie Murphy - and this is no exception. Its a remake of Showdown in Abilene starring Jock Mahoney. This is so close to the original that the original writer of Showdown, Berne Giler, gets a 'screenplay' credit although I suspect that means Giler's original script was handed to the other credited writer, John Black, who made a few nominal changes to update it for the budget and to try and disguise that this was a remake by changing the character names.
Looking suspiciously as if it was intended originally as a Murphy vehicle, this humdrum affair features singer Bobby Darin as a gunfighter who can't put on a gun again after accidentally killing his best friend but naturally is forced to do so at the end. Darin struggles in the acting stakes - someone must have told him to wear black gloves as a symbol of being psychologically disturbed (maybe he saw Kirk Douglas in The Last Sunset - of which more later) although no-one comments on this even when he wears them indoors - and bites his lips a lot. He's also too slight to be a feared gunman and looks faintly ridiculous in nicely pressed tight beige trousers.
The background plot is a range war between cattlemen and sodbusters. However, being that this is a cheap film, all of the shots of cattle herds and civil war fighting are taken from other films shot on different film stock and it shows. This being a Universal release the production has been allowed to raid the Universal library and che civil war shots are from Shenandoah and many, if not all of the shots of cattle herds are from aforementioned The Last Sunset including shots of a cattle herd crossing a river into a town and being put into a cattle corral. So, instead of seeing any cattle everything is largely confined to the standing Universal western town set and a few indoor sets.
The film is lamentable short on much action until the end. Further Darin's character came across to me as a complete cad. Darin's chopped off Leslie Neilson's arm, killed his brother and then tomcatted his fiancée(whom Darin also humiliates by being blatantly unfaithful too by screwing another woman virtually infront of her and then dumping this other gal when the ex-financee changes her mind). Neilsen should have shot Darin dead.
I thought Don Galloway came off best as the laid back deputy quite happy to serve any sheriff, no matter how corrupt.
Looking suspiciously as if it was intended originally as a Murphy vehicle, this humdrum affair features singer Bobby Darin as a gunfighter who can't put on a gun again after accidentally killing his best friend but naturally is forced to do so at the end. Darin struggles in the acting stakes - someone must have told him to wear black gloves as a symbol of being psychologically disturbed (maybe he saw Kirk Douglas in The Last Sunset - of which more later) although no-one comments on this even when he wears them indoors - and bites his lips a lot. He's also too slight to be a feared gunman and looks faintly ridiculous in nicely pressed tight beige trousers.
The background plot is a range war between cattlemen and sodbusters. However, being that this is a cheap film, all of the shots of cattle herds and civil war fighting are taken from other films shot on different film stock and it shows. This being a Universal release the production has been allowed to raid the Universal library and che civil war shots are from Shenandoah and many, if not all of the shots of cattle herds are from aforementioned The Last Sunset including shots of a cattle herd crossing a river into a town and being put into a cattle corral. So, instead of seeing any cattle everything is largely confined to the standing Universal western town set and a few indoor sets.
The film is lamentable short on much action until the end. Further Darin's character came across to me as a complete cad. Darin's chopped off Leslie Neilson's arm, killed his brother and then tomcatted his fiancée(whom Darin also humiliates by being blatantly unfaithful too by screwing another woman virtually infront of her and then dumping this other gal when the ex-financee changes her mind). Neilsen should have shot Darin dead.
I thought Don Galloway came off best as the laid back deputy quite happy to serve any sheriff, no matter how corrupt.