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1951's "The Bushwhackers" is a very tight, tough hour-long Western, featuring a solid cast of capable veterans. The Civil War has just ended, and confederate soldier Jefferson Waring (John Ireland) believes he'll never again have to point a gun at another man. Unfortunately, he soon finds himself in a lawless Western town where the settlers are battling to defend their homes against evil, greedy homesteaders headed by Artemus Taylor (Lon Chaney), a crippled, wheelchair-bound madman whose bitterness is matched by his devoted daughter (Myrna Dell), who may be even more ruthless than he is. Among the many familiar faces, Wayne Morris easily stands out as a marshal clearly working out of Taylor's pocket, yet trying vainly to keep the peace, mainly through jailing the unarmed Waring. Third-billed Lawrence Tierney, never at home in Westerns like his younger brother Scott Brady, is totally wasted as a hired gun, dispatched midway through, while Jack Elam relishes his bad guy role, whether lasciviously eyeing the ladies or simply killing people. Despite playing the lead villain, Lon Chaney has very little screen time (only three scenes), but this elderly, arthritic character led to his being cast as Gary Cooper's elderly, arthritic Marshal in the subsequent "High Noon."

"The Bushwhackers" is one of the rare movies in which John Ireland had the male lead. Ireland was just an okay actor who did well in many of the supporting and smaller roles he got in films. But, he wasn't a top-drawer actor, and without the more handsome looks he was relegated to being a supporting actor and frequent cast member.

Ireland does well in this film. It's a different type of Western. The film opens with some gritty scenes of the Civil War and the war's end. Ireland's Jefferson Waring has had his fill of killing and guns, and he heads for the West to start life anew - without any firearms. When he reaches Independence, Missouri, he finds himself embroiled in a feud in which a land baron is trying to run off settlers. That was a worn-out plot of many Westerns in the 1950s.

The story has some nice twists, with Waring getting the short end of a couple of encounters and winding up in the hoosegow. And, naturally, there's a girl who eventually helps Waring change his mind about moving on.

Other characters include Marshal John Harding, played by Wayne Morris, and Cathy Sharpe, played by Dorothy Malone. A standard bad guy in Westerns is Jack Elam, here playing Cree. The big extra in this film, and reason to see it, is Lon Chaney Jr. He plays Artemus Taylor. I don't think Chaney was ever in another Western.

With the Civil War over, ex-Rebel John Ireland vws never to kill a man again, and heads west. He gets caught up short in Missouri, where paralyzed Lon Chaney Jr. Is burning out land grant recipients because the railroad is going to come through, and make the land worth a fortune. He's assembled a team of baddies, including Laurence Tierney, Jack Elam, and daughter Myrna Dell; the good people, like newspaper editor Frank Marlowe and his daughter, Dorothy Malone, are scared to oppose him. The only thing standing in his way is a shortage of sociopaths. Some of Chaney's hirelings have scruples.

Rod Amateau's first movie as director has an overtly stated political theme, which is carried out in a heavy-handed fashion by a highly competent crew and interesting cast.. Yet while you can see the roots of ultra-violent spaghetti westerns here, it isn't well carried off.

By the time Lawrence Tierney appeared in the b-western THE BUSHWHACKERS, his leading man career was finished.. but he's used importantly here, at least in the rudimentary stages: a hired thug appearing before crippled land baron Lon Chaney Jr and the lethal daughter who hired him to kill off random settlers...

Ironically, Chaney and daughter are correct about the squatters being more interested in big money than settling down... while Tierney continues bullying more underdogs, including passive leading man John Ireland, a Civil War veteran who, during a historic prelude, promised to never use a gun again...

The familiar plot-line seems somewhat original, mainly because the venomous Dell's Noreh Taylor, actually held back by her commanding/demanding father... she would have fared much better as the sole heavy, perhaps with hired-gun Lawrence Tierney being smitten with his blonde boss or... some kind of side-plot that would keep him around longer...

Unfortunately, the third-billed DILLINGER icon is anticlimactically killed halfway through, cutting the overall threat in half, leaving sparse closure between Ireland and the only person worthy of a vengeful showdown (left with henchman's henchman Jack Elam)... but at least he has honest newspaperman's idealist daughter Dorothy Malone (who handles a gun well herself) to retire with: He just needed to work a lot harder to rest with those laurels.

Ex-Confederate John Ireland flees reconstruction and it's test of his vow of non-violence. Heading west, he winds up in a town under the thumb of powerful land baron Lon Chaney and his sadistic enforcer Lawrence Tierney, who are killing stealing land in anticipation of the railroad. Trying to leave, Ireland is only pulled in deeper.

Another hard-boiled, low-budget 1950's western noir, The Bushwhackers is vivid and fairly violent entertainment that's definitely worth checking out. Like nearly all good westerns, it does a great job of manipulating the viewer, building up to the moment when all bets are off and the hero straps on his six-gun to take care of business.

Here, Ireland and Tierney are fantastic. It's too bad that these two great actors were pretty much relegated to minor films (Tierney especially) due their alleged drunken exploits.

The rest of the cast, Wayne Morris, Dorothy Malone (who's beautiful), and Jack Elam, are all great too.