Darn Good Westerns V. 2 (Deputy
Marshall/Four Fast Guns/Massacre/Outlaw Women/Shotgun/Three Desperate Men/VCI DVD)
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: C Films: C+
VCI continues to find unusual and interesting Westerns for
their Darn Good Western series and Volume 2 is no exception.
Deputy Marshall (1949/1.33 X 1/Black & White)
has the title character (Jon Hall) taking on gangster types who want to steal
land from honest farmers in this decent hour-long B-movie with Frances Langford
and Dick Foran. Holds up well for its
age.
Four Fast Guns (1959/anamorphically enhanced
2.35 X 1/Black & White) is a decent revenge Western shot in CinemaScope
with James Craig, Martha Vickers and Edgar Buchanan that is one of the smoother
B-movie scope Westerns I have seen. It
has a brothers angle and takes itself seriously.
Massacre (1956/ anamorphically enhanced
1.85 X 1) was shot in AnscoColor, but this is a very faded print of an
interesting, odd “get the Indians” tale Fox released at the time. Dane Clark, James Craig and Martha Roth
co-star in this odd curio that also has a predominant Hispanic cast and was
co-written by the very able genre writer Fred Freiberger with William Tunberg.
Outlaw Women (1952/1.33 X 1) is the first of
two films directed here by Sam Newfield is an interesting film that should have
some kind of cult status about a Western town where men are not allowed to
enter. Produced in (decent-looking at
best here) CineColor, this was produced by Ron Ormond, who gave the world one
of the worst films ever made, The Mesa
Of Lost Women a year later. Though
not that bad, it is funny and offers a cast that includes Marie Windsor,
Jacqueline Fontaine, Jackie Coogan and Lyle Talbot. This runs 75 minutes, which is good in its
case.
Shotgun (1955) is co-written by, but does
not star the great character actor Rory Calhoun (known for his Westerns) is an
interesting Revenge Western with Sterling Hayden (not long after Johnny
Guitar), Yvonne DeCarlo as a Half-Breed and Zachary Scott as a bounty hunter in
this interesting Technicolor production (not looking bad here) from Allied
Artists. Ambitious and well done, it is
a good looking production, in part thanks to Director of Photography, who would
soon lens the original Invasion Of The
Body Snatchers in 1956.
Three Desperate Men (1951/1.33 X 1/Black & White)
is the other of two films directed here by Sam Newfield is a good family versus
the law tale where a brother is on trail for a crime he did not commit. William Tunberg had previously written Garden Of Evil
and this is a smart film at the near full length of 71 minutes. Preston Foster, Ross Latimer and Jim Davis
are the Denton Brothers. Orville H.
Hampton wrote both this and Outlaw Women,
later proving to be a formidable genre writer in general for TV.
Extras include trailers for each on their respective
discs, while Robert Lippert, Jr. discusses Massacre on that DVD. The picture and sound quality is on par with
first set and you can read more about it at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8408/Darn+Good+Westerns+%E2%80%93+Volume
- Nicholas Sheffo
