This is one surprising damn good Western. So glad I watched it after seeing countless other routine B-westerns. It's not even close to a classic superior Western, but in a little over an hour they packed in a clever, tense, noir, imaginative, surprising, twisting, exciting package. You will be at the set-of-your-pants and glued to your TV throughout.
The beginning was believable. Then there was a furious gun battle (lots of shots fired, hardly anyone hit). Towards the end it got less believable but quite nasty and twisty.
***spoilers*** Just to give three examples of the cleverness of the story: (1) the banker was forced at gunpoint to hand over the money from his safe, but his miserable partner, who saw this through a window, mistakenly thought the banker was in cahoots with the bank robbers and was voluntarily handing over the money. The robbers later killed the banker, but to escape a hanging charge, the killer agreed with the partner that the banker was part of the gang and was shot during his part in the robbery (not an innocent murdered). This caused great consternation to the hero, the banker's son; (2) one of the robbers happened to snatch the satchel of stolen money, then hid it, and then was shot dead during the shootout with the townspeople. A big part of the movie was not only searching for the money, but wondering who had made off with it. And (3) in a search for the missing money, which was supposed to be in a satchel, the falling-out gang members fought each other over the finally-found satchel, but it was then found to be empty at the time!
The unrealistic parts included: (1) gang leader Neville Brand holding up and disarming the posse single-handily, and (2) the gang (of only several members) holding-up at bay the entire town of dozens of people (including many able gunmen).
The best and shocking part of the movie is how practically the entire town turned here and there vindictive, selfish, greedy, cowardly, dishonest, lynch-crazy, etc. Everyone seems to be antagonistic to and betraying the others. Half of the outlaw gang is out to double-cross the other half to the bank robbery. Then in a clever way, the bank loot disappears in the middle of the robbery shoot-out, and when the dust clears the robbers and the townsfolk are looking for the loot and accusing each other of absconding with it. One henpecked husband is planning to desert his intolerable wife. One bank partner is falsely accusing his other partner of being part of the bank robbery. Some townspeople won't join a posse to find the loot, but insist that others do. Some won't help because it is not their money. Many townsfolk want to lynch the captured robbers.
The movie was very well written and put together, with many sub-plots and different characters -- a good huge cast for such a low-budget black and white B-western. See it!
The beginning was believable. Then there was a furious gun battle (lots of shots fired, hardly anyone hit). Towards the end it got less believable but quite nasty and twisty.
***spoilers*** Just to give three examples of the cleverness of the story: (1) the banker was forced at gunpoint to hand over the money from his safe, but his miserable partner, who saw this through a window, mistakenly thought the banker was in cahoots with the bank robbers and was voluntarily handing over the money. The robbers later killed the banker, but to escape a hanging charge, the killer agreed with the partner that the banker was part of the gang and was shot during his part in the robbery (not an innocent murdered). This caused great consternation to the hero, the banker's son; (2) one of the robbers happened to snatch the satchel of stolen money, then hid it, and then was shot dead during the shootout with the townspeople. A big part of the movie was not only searching for the money, but wondering who had made off with it. And (3) in a search for the missing money, which was supposed to be in a satchel, the falling-out gang members fought each other over the finally-found satchel, but it was then found to be empty at the time!
The unrealistic parts included: (1) gang leader Neville Brand holding up and disarming the posse single-handily, and (2) the gang (of only several members) holding-up at bay the entire town of dozens of people (including many able gunmen).
The best and shocking part of the movie is how practically the entire town turned here and there vindictive, selfish, greedy, cowardly, dishonest, lynch-crazy, etc. Everyone seems to be antagonistic to and betraying the others. Half of the outlaw gang is out to double-cross the other half to the bank robbery. Then in a clever way, the bank loot disappears in the middle of the robbery shoot-out, and when the dust clears the robbers and the townsfolk are looking for the loot and accusing each other of absconding with it. One henpecked husband is planning to desert his intolerable wife. One bank partner is falsely accusing his other partner of being part of the bank robbery. Some townspeople won't join a posse to find the loot, but insist that others do. Some won't help because it is not their money. Many townsfolk want to lynch the captured robbers.
The movie was very well written and put together, with many sub-plots and different characters -- a good huge cast for such a low-budget black and white B-western. See it!