I couldn't get over seeing Roger Corman's name in the opening credits as both producer and director of "Five Guns West", out the same year as another low budget flick that marked the beginning of his career - "Swamp Women". Oddly, both films featured a young Mike Connors in a lead role, but credited in each as 'Touch' Connors. In this picture, he's one of five outlaws pardoned by the Confederacy in exchange for undertaking a special assignment on behalf of the Southern cause. The entire plot becomes rather dubious because by the time the men intercept a stagecoach supposed to be bearing thirty thousand dollars in hard currency, neither their human target or the money is anywhere to be found. Dorothy Malone is thrown into the middle of the story as a bit of a distraction and something of a love interest for the nominal leader of the bad guys, Govern Sturgess (John Lund).
Probably the dumbest scene in the film was that shootout under the porch between Sturgess and John Candy, the Candy Brothers impressing me as the original Dumb and Dumber. Brother Will in fact was such a hothead that it was surprising he lasted as long as he did in the story; in the course of the picture he wound up picking a fight with each of his companions. I did however get a kick out of the scene where they cut off and shook the rattlesnake's tail, a gimmick visited some fifteen years later in "Two Mules For Sister Sara". My question still is - can you really do that with a rattlesnake tail?
There's really not a lot here to get excited about other than seeing an early Corman effort. From that standpoint, it's a lot better than a bunch of later stuff he did in the grade Z horror category, but at least flicks like "The Wasp Woman" and "Creature From The Haunted Sea" had some camp value. This one sets out with an interesting premise, but winds up being hijacked along with the Dawn Springs stagecoach.
Probably the dumbest scene in the film was that shootout under the porch between Sturgess and John Candy, the Candy Brothers impressing me as the original Dumb and Dumber. Brother Will in fact was such a hothead that it was surprising he lasted as long as he did in the story; in the course of the picture he wound up picking a fight with each of his companions. I did however get a kick out of the scene where they cut off and shook the rattlesnake's tail, a gimmick visited some fifteen years later in "Two Mules For Sister Sara". My question still is - can you really do that with a rattlesnake tail?
There's really not a lot here to get excited about other than seeing an early Corman effort. From that standpoint, it's a lot better than a bunch of later stuff he did in the grade Z horror category, but at least flicks like "The Wasp Woman" and "Creature From The Haunted Sea" had some camp value. This one sets out with an interesting premise, but winds up being hijacked along with the Dawn Springs stagecoach.