Chuck Morton (James Brown) is sheriff of a Western town near the turn of the century, and his quiet day is about to get a lot more complicated.
A telegraph arrives informing him that Gary Wells has broken out of jail, running down and killing a guard in the process.
Morton’s pretty sure he’s headed for his town. After all, his sister lives there. So does Mrs. Knudson (Peggy Stewart), who was once his wife and bore him a son.
So do a couple of townspeople Gary might want to get even with because they helped sentence him to life in prison.
Oh, Gary has enemies in town, too. None hate him more than saloon girl Joan Brady (Jean Willes), sister of a man who died in the bank holdup Gary committed six years earlier. She’ll even pay to see him dead.
But catching Gary might not be so easy. He’s a cold-blooded man, and proves it by killing a miner to steal his horse, by slitting the throat of a dog belonging to his former wife and by pouring six bullets into the body of a townsman who flees for fear his life is in danger.
Review:
James Brown plays a sheriff with a sour attitude toward his job. At one point, when the mayor insists Gary Wells be tracked down immediately, the sheriff takes off his badge and pins it on the mayor, handing him a rifle as well and suggesting he track down the killer.
In another scene, the sheriff visits the home of Gary’s sister. Once there, he informs her husband that she’s pulled $500 from their bank account to give to the killer. The husband takes her into a back room and beats her. It’ll be worth it, the sheriff says, if the beating yields information that will help them find Gary.
As for this Gary Wells … the film is unique in that we barely catch a glimpse of the notorious outlaw who is causing so much consternation in town. Not a bad film, but not very memorable either.
Directed by:
Edward L. Cahn
Cast:
James Brown … Sheriff Chuck Morton
Jean Willes … Joan Brady
John Clarke … Deputy Sam Freed
John Pickard … Dr. Knudson
Med Flory … Willie Driscoll
Peggy Stewart … Mrs. Knudson
Sandra Stone … Pat Bogan
Warren J. Kemmerling … Frank Bogan
Nesdon Booth … Mayor Phillips
Herb Armstrong … Jeff Baxley
Renny McEvoy … Operator
Runtime: 67 min.
Memorable lines:
Sheriff Morton: “It’s about that big, sweet brother of yours.”
Pat Bogan: “What about Gary?”
Morton: “To add to his rich, full life, he killed a guard as he escaped from the penitentiary this morning.”
Joan Brady: “Sheriff, you’d better find Gary fast. Because if I find him first, he just won’t be in any condition to be hanged.”
Sheriff Morton: “How can God make a night so beautiful and a world so rotten?”
Sheriff Morton, upon finding Jeff Baxley shot six times: “He wasn’t much of a man. It must have been like shooting a baby.”
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