Jim Davis is Marshal Matt Gordon, who finds himself torn between doing his duty and being forced to track down a childhood friend.
His posse captures Cheney Holland (Don Mowegan) and his badly wounded brother. When the brother dies, Holland breaks free at the funeral, with the help of a pretty gal named Sherry (Allison Hayes).
Cheney kills a man in the process, then sets out to get the members of his old gang, blaming them for his brother’s death because they rode off after he was wounded.
Gordon sets out on the trail of Cheney, hoping that leads him to gang leader Isaac Stancil as well.
Review:
The movie poster promises us a tale of “twisted men and tawdry women … living in a tempest of distorted desire” and shows Allison Hayes, scantily clad in a bed.
Truth: Allison is never that scantily clad in the film and the only thing dirty about this rather non-discript Western is the final scene, in which the good guy and bad guy duke it out to the finish in a mud-filled hog pen.
Perhaps the poster maker could see into director Oliver Drake’s future. The maker of 39 films, he started his career making series Westerns and directed three episodes of Lassie. But he ended it making sexplotation films, including 1969’s “Ride a Wild Stud” in which the Quantrill gang kidnaps and rapes women, then puts them to work in a brothel.
The best role here belongs to the vengeance-seeking Mowegan, who has an especially brutal encounter with gang leader Isaac Stancil. Standing 6-foot-7, Mowegan played the creature in the 1956 sci-fi film “The Creature Walks Among Us.” One of his last film roles was a small part in the 1974 comedy Western “Blazing Saddles.”
Directed by:
Oliver Drake
Cast:
Jim Davis … Marshal Matt Gordon
Don Megowan … Cheney Holland
Allison Hayes … Sherry
Gerald Milton … Isaac Stancil
Tom Hubbard … Deputy Kane Guthrie
Al Terr … Drunk
Claire Carleton … Minn
John Holland … Mayor McKenzie
Rickie Sorensen … Jeff
James Maloney … Rev. Stockton
Memorable lines:
Isaac Stancil: “You don’t have to worry about Cheney no more. He’s going to settle down.”
Sherry: “What do you mean?”
Isaac: “He’s picked out nice little spot called Leavenworth.”
Marshal Matt Gordon to Sherry, telling her about longtime friend Cheney Holland: “When we were kids, he roughed up a dog and it bit him. He went straight home to his old man, got a rifle, tracked down the dog and shot him. He just wanted to get even. Guess Cheney never grew up.”
Cheney to Marshal Gordon: “Keep talking. Your diggin’ your grave with words.”
Marshal Gordon: “You’re not satisfied with putting a rope around your own neck. Now you want to put one around Sherry’s.”
Cheney: “… I know how she affects men. But she’s my woman. And I’m taking her with me.”
Marshal Gordon: “And you’ll take her right into hell. Just like you did Luke (Cheney’s brother).”
Cheney to Deputy Kane Guthrie: “I’ll count to 10. If you haven’t drawn, I’ll spread whatever guts you got all over the floor.”
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