"The Last Man On Earth" director Sidney Salkow's "The Quick Gun" ranks as one of Audie Murphy's lesser efforts. Nevertheless, western movie fans may find it tolerably entertaining as a B-movie horse opera with enough noisy gun play, clattering hoof beats, and dead bodies to compensate for all its dusty clichés.
Audie plays Clint Cooper, a swift-shooting son of a six-gun who returns to the quiet frontier town of Shelby, two years after he shot it out with an influential rancher's two sons, to work the ranch that his deceased dad left him. Along the trail to Shelby, Clint runs into outlaw leader Jud Spangler and his gang of trigger-happy hard-cases. Spangler plans to raid Shelby, rob the bank brimming with cattle money, drink the town dry and carry off the women folk. When Clint and Jud (veteran tough guy Ted de Corsica of "Nevada Smith") tangle early on, we know half of everything that will transpire in this predictable but bloodthirsty oater.
It seems that Jud and Clint were old pals that are now on opposite ends of the gun barrel. Clint escapes from Jud's army of pistoleros and rides to Shelby to warn Sheriff Wade (James Best before "The Dukes of Hazzard"). Meanwhile, one of Clint's vengeful enemies Tom Morrison (pot-bellied Walter Sande of "Bad Day at Black Rock") wants to settle an old score between them. Clint gunned down two of Tom's sons before he rode out two years ago, and Tom refuses to let anything stand in his way when it comes to payback. At the same time, Sheriff Wade has herded all the women and children into the local church and the remaining townspeople have erected a barricade across Main Street and doused it with kerosene to discourage Spangler's gun-hands. Were that not enough drama, the town's schoolmarmHelen Reed (Merry Andrews of "Women of the Prehistoric Planet")plans to wed Wade until she lays eyes on Clint and second thoughts plague her.
The surprises are few and far between in "Utah Blaine" scenarist Robert E. Kent's saddle sore screenplay, but he serves up a passel of quotable dialogue. Surprises aren't what count here, it's the complications that give "The Quick Gun" its fleeting edge. As the townspeople are erecting the barricade, Tom and his nephew jump Clint in the barn and try to string him up. As a result, our hero is compelled to kill them. Wade arrives in time to disarm Clint and haul him off to jail, even when they need everything gun that they can lay their hands on. Unshaven Ted de Corsica is more obnoxious than intimidating, but he chews the scenery with such gusto that you actually look forward to seeing him. Murphy plays his usual,tight-lipped protagonist. Murphy's stuntman gets a good workout, especially in one scene when he leaps from a second-story balcony and hits the ground running.
Clocking in at a brisk 87 minutes, "The Quick Gun" doesn't wear out its welcome and a higher-than-average body count gives it more menace than most American oaters made 1964 typically had before the advent of the spaghetti western. Seasoned western director Sidney Salkow doesn't waste a lot of time getting around to the gun play. The ending has a "High Noon" quality to it.
Audie plays Clint Cooper, a swift-shooting son of a six-gun who returns to the quiet frontier town of Shelby, two years after he shot it out with an influential rancher's two sons, to work the ranch that his deceased dad left him. Along the trail to Shelby, Clint runs into outlaw leader Jud Spangler and his gang of trigger-happy hard-cases. Spangler plans to raid Shelby, rob the bank brimming with cattle money, drink the town dry and carry off the women folk. When Clint and Jud (veteran tough guy Ted de Corsica of "Nevada Smith") tangle early on, we know half of everything that will transpire in this predictable but bloodthirsty oater.
It seems that Jud and Clint were old pals that are now on opposite ends of the gun barrel. Clint escapes from Jud's army of pistoleros and rides to Shelby to warn Sheriff Wade (James Best before "The Dukes of Hazzard"). Meanwhile, one of Clint's vengeful enemies Tom Morrison (pot-bellied Walter Sande of "Bad Day at Black Rock") wants to settle an old score between them. Clint gunned down two of Tom's sons before he rode out two years ago, and Tom refuses to let anything stand in his way when it comes to payback. At the same time, Sheriff Wade has herded all the women and children into the local church and the remaining townspeople have erected a barricade across Main Street and doused it with kerosene to discourage Spangler's gun-hands. Were that not enough drama, the town's schoolmarmHelen Reed (Merry Andrews of "Women of the Prehistoric Planet")plans to wed Wade until she lays eyes on Clint and second thoughts plague her.
The surprises are few and far between in "Utah Blaine" scenarist Robert E. Kent's saddle sore screenplay, but he serves up a passel of quotable dialogue. Surprises aren't what count here, it's the complications that give "The Quick Gun" its fleeting edge. As the townspeople are erecting the barricade, Tom and his nephew jump Clint in the barn and try to string him up. As a result, our hero is compelled to kill them. Wade arrives in time to disarm Clint and haul him off to jail, even when they need everything gun that they can lay their hands on. Unshaven Ted de Corsica is more obnoxious than intimidating, but he chews the scenery with such gusto that you actually look forward to seeing him. Murphy plays his usual,tight-lipped protagonist. Murphy's stuntman gets a good workout, especially in one scene when he leaps from a second-story balcony and hits the ground running.
Clocking in at a brisk 87 minutes, "The Quick Gun" doesn't wear out its welcome and a higher-than-average body count gives it more menace than most American oaters made 1964 typically had before the advent of the spaghetti western. Seasoned western director Sidney Salkow doesn't waste a lot of time getting around to the gun play. The ending has a "High Noon" quality to it.