Mark Stevens plays the haunted title character. At age 12, he accidentally kills a man and has to flee his home with his dad. On their way out of town, the stage they’re riding on is held up; young Joey Slade’s dad is murdered.
Joey vows to get the man who killed his dad. That’ll be a mighty big task, finding one outlaw in the whole wild West, the stage driver reminds him. Joey’s response: “Then I’ll kill them all.”
By the time he’s an adult, Joey has adopted the name Jack Slade and has gotten quick enough with his gun to live up to that promise. He’s a hired gun, useful until all the badmen are run out of a particular town, then sent on his way for being too good a gunman.
And so he winds up in Julesburg, Colorado, where he’s given control of a stage line that can’t keep thieves from stealing its horses. There, he also finds an aggressive woman (Dorothy Malone as Virgina Dale) who’s determined to love him.
Things go fine for a while; then two deaths send Slade down a path of self-destruction. First, he watches a young boy who reminds him of his youth get gunned down; then he accidentally shoots and kills the man who adopted him when he was young.
From that point on, it’s a downward spiral for a man who hates killers and doesn’t like himself very much. And there’s still at least one arch enemy who wants to see him dead.
Review:
Very well done low-budget Western, probably Mark Stevens’ best outing in Western garb. He’s a fast gun and he helps clean up Julesburg, but he’s not a hero in any sense of the word.
Stevens provides a possessed performance, and he’s allowed to take on a haggard appearance, complete with sweat-stained clothing as the film progresses. The “Ballad of Jack Slade,” performed by one of the bad men he’s after, is a nice touch.
Only Malone’s character makes no sense; she takes one look at Stevens and decides he’s the man she’ll marry, despite his warnings that loving him probably isn’t wise.
Oh, and the killings in the film are exceptionally violent for the era.
Two years later, “The Return of Jack Slade” was released starring John Ericson. In spite of that title, it is not a sequel to this film.
Directed by:
Harold D. Schuster
Cast:
Mark Stevens … Jack Slade
Dorothy Malone … Virginia Dale
Barton MacLane … Jules Renni
Paul Langton … Dan Traver
Harry Shannon … Tom Carter
Sammy Ogg … Young Joey Slade
Ron Hargrave … Ned Prentiss
John Litel … Judge Davidson
John Harmon … Hollis
Jim Bannon … Farnsworth
Lee Van Cleef … Bolt Mackay
David May … Tump
Nelson Leigh … Alf Slade
Richard Reeves … Rufe Prentice
Dorothy Kennedy … Mrs. Ward
Runtime: 89 min.
Memorable lines:
Alf Slade: “We all make mistakes, Joey. You made a big one. Ain’t nothing we can do about that now. But you’ve got to promise me, you’ll always be good and pay for your mistakes.
Young Joey Slade: “I promise, pa. I’ll do my best.”
Jack Slade: “Funny, the one thing I hate most in the whole world is a killer. I guess that’s why I don’t like myself too much.”
Slade, to his adopted dad: “What is it with me? I seem to draw trouble like a dead horse draws flies?”
Bode McKay, hothead at bar, to Jack: “I’m gettin’ mad, soldier boy. And when I’m mad, I’m bad.”
Dan Traver: “Now there’s a paradox of a woman — a wonderful person, kind, patient, beautiful, with a streak of Comanche in her a yard wide. Now what would you do with a girl like that?”
Virginia Dale: “You can live a lifetime in a day, Dan.”
Dan Traver: “It can be a long and miserable day, Virginia.”
Jules Renni: “I’m going to watch you squirm for a while. Then I’m going to kill you too dead to skin.”
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