Ein Mann allein

Just a brief correction on the above comments: A Man Alone was *not* Milland's only directoral experience. He also directed Lisbon (also starred and produced), The Safecracker (U.K., also starred), Panic in the Year Zero! (also starred) and Hostile Witness (U.K., also starred). Although solid pictures, none of these films made a strong impact on Milland's career.

The first 30 minutes of this film are very gritty, with Wes Steele in trouble from the start, discovering the stage with its murdered passengers and then becoming a fugitive trapped in a town. Then the film tapers off a bit, and it's a little hard to accept that Nadine comes to trust him so quickly.

I'm conscious of my own pedantry, but have to note that Milland here joins Gary Cooper and Randolph Scott in playing a middle-aged Westerner who has little trouble in attracting a much younger woman - he was 50 when the film was released. And if being the notorious Wes Steele is such a handicap, why not assume a false name - it would have been difficult for the authorities to disprove a false identity. (Richard Egan in "Tension at Table Rock" was another notorious Wes - Tancred in this case and in the ballad that accompanied the film - who diligently signed his real name in hotel registers, only for the clerk to react in distaste.) The "Time Out" review describes Milland's direction as "sometimes a little too ponderously deliberate, but - like the performances - eminently watchable", and I agree with this. The plot made a pleasant change from the run-of-the-mill Westerns of the 1940s and 1950s.

I was surprised about how good this was since Ray Milland didn't star in hardly any westerns and this was the only western he directed. Milland plays a gunfighter who's horse dies in the desert and starts to walk when he comes across a carriage full of dead people and he takes a horse and goes into the nearest town. As soon as gets into town, Milland shoots a deputy who thought he was the killer and the whole town is after him. Milland winds up hiding in the basement of the sheriff and his daughter and the daughter winds up falling in love with him. Ward Bond plays the sheriff who was sick and when he wakes up doesn't know what's going on. It's a good western that isn't very well known.

Ray Milland's early career was in mostly light romantic fluff but he did have Oscar success in The Lost Weekend. He and Ginger Rogers were fun in The Major And The Minor. He was properly creepy in Dial M For Murder. His later years were lost in terrible monster flicks and bit parts. In the midst of the lousy movies, he did make a Western that stood out. This one. He was actually pretty good in it and as his directorial debut it wasn't bad either. It's a shame that the director's best assets weren't better utilized. He kept one of my very favorite character actors in bed for most of the movie (Ward Bond) and Raymond Burr isn't on screen long enough for my liking. This role was one of many villains that Burr so splendidly played for many years until we see him as Perry Mason in 1957. Another great bad guy that gets some close-ups is Lee Van Cleef. In the 60's and 70's, we'll see lots of him in many Leone or Gemma "spaghetti" Westerns. His face says so much without saying a word.....an absolute necessity when you don't speak Italian. I guess that's why Eastwood did so well in spaghetti Westerns...he wasn't much of an actor back then. In this movie, Ray Milland plays an aging gunfighter (he's on foot) who comes upon the murdered victims of a stagecoach holdup. He rides one of the the stagecoach horses into town to get help. The nervous deputy (a younger Alan Hale, Jr) is summoned (after seeing Milland ride in on the stagecoach horse) and shoots at Milland as he dismounts. Milland shoots back and wounds the deputy. Thereafter, they hunt for him high and low and block all exits out of town. Milland unknowingly takes refuge in the sick sheriff's home (under quarantine) where his daughter is nursing him back to health. The scenes between Milland and the sheriff's daughter are well done. The outcome is not decided until the final minutes of the movie. It's a good movie for Ray Milland fans and if you like good bad guys and good character actors...this is a good one for you, too.

Notorious gunman Ray Milland comes upon the scene of a stagecoach massacre. Outlaws had robbed the stage and killed six people, including a mother and child. Milland frees the horses and rides one of them into town for help during a sandstorm.

The sheriff is laid up and a lout of a deputy, Alan Hale Jr., comes at Milland gun in hand without identifying himself. Milland starts shooting and wounds the deputy. After that it's a hunt for Milland in the town.

Of course he takes refuge in the one place no one is going to look, the house of the sheriff, Ward Bond and his daughter Mary Murphy. The house is under quarantine because Bond is down with yellow fever.

Milland helps Murphy nurse Bond back to health. During which news of the stagecoach massacre reaches town. And the hunt is renewed.

Milland gives a fine performance in this very grim western of a man on the run, mostly due to his bad reputation. Ray Milland also directed this film for Republic Pictures in its last days. Director Milland got some good performances out of such in the cast as Raymond Burr, Lee Van Cleef, Arthur Space, and Thomas Brown Henry.

A Man Alone has similar plot premises to both The Oxbow Incident and John Payne's Silver Lode that came out the year before. All three had to do with the terrible consequences of mob violence when due process is abandoned. Very telling stuff indeed coming out as it did at the tail end of the McCarthy era.

The film holds up very well after over 50 years and is recommended for western and other movie fans.