John Agar plays Bill Jordan, sheriff of Gunlock, and he’s in a heap of trouble. He has Sam Hall (Richard Boone), a gunman accused of three murders, in his jail, scheduled for hanging at sundown.
He has a mean group of cattlemen — headed by cattle king George Ballard (Leif Erickson) — itching to break Hall out of jail. And he has an angry group of farmers, led by the local school teacher, determined to see Hall hang.
If being caught between the two factions isn’t enough, Jordan has to contend with the fact that he’s engaged to the lovely Ellen Ballard (Mamie Van Doren), who’s unaware of her brother George’s treachery. Fact is, he’s the one who put a $1,000 per head bounty on the farmers Hall killed.
Central to the plot are a pair of letters in Hall’s possession. He thinks they’ll prove he’s been hired by George Ballard. He’s pretty certain they’ll be his ticket out of jail. But Ballard convinces the wife of a fellow rancher that those letters pin all the blame on her husband, not him.
Review:
The film features a complicated plot, several unexpected twists, a larger than usual cast of characters and should be simmering with tension. Oddly, it isn’t, and frequent interruption of the plot with a tepid theme song doesn’t help in that respect.
One of the film’s highlights is an extended catfight between Coleen Gray, who plays a local girl who fell for the gunman Hall, and Randy Stuart, who plays the wife of one of the ranchers. They’re fighting for possession of those aforementioned letters.
Directed by:
Charles Hass
Cast:
John Agar … Sheriff Bill Jordan
Paul Fix … Mike MacNamara
Mamie Van Doren … Ellen Ballard
Leif Erickson … George Ballard
Richard Boone … Sam Hall
Coleen Gray … Nellie Matson
Henry Morgan … Lew Hogan
Randy Stuart … Nan Hogan
Terry Gilkyson … Music Man
Paul Fix … Mike MacNamara
Stuart Randall … Jess Ryman
John Daheim … Jiggs Larribee
James Gleason … Orval Jones
Song: “Ballad of Sam Hall,” sang by Terry Gilkyson
Runtime: 80 min.
Memorable lines:
Sam Hall, to his gal, Nellie, as he awaits his hanging: “Don’t worry, No one’s got a rope my size.”
Nellie to Ellen Ballard, who thinks she’s doing the shunned woman a favor by asking her to make her wedding dress: “About your trousseau, I can’t sew and cry at the same time.”
Ellen Ballard, upon seeing boyfriend Bill Jordan with a bruise on his face: “What happened?”
Bill: “I turned the tables and spanked the school teacher.”
Fellow inmate Jess Ryman: “Where’d you get the gun?”
Sam Hall: “I fished it out of the air with a spoon.”
){kind=link}