Blut an meinen Händen

Good western featuring a reticent gunslinger and a lawman who has lost his nerve who must go up against a group of thugs who want to let off steam in their town. Egan was well cast as the gunman who was short on talk and long on slinging lead when the chips were down.

Needing a break from his gunfighter western ways, rugged Richard Egan (as Wes Tancred) decides to take on a tamer identity (as "John Bailey"). In this guise, Mr. Egan finds honest work, but immediate tragedy. He hooks up with blue-eyed Billy Chapin (as Jody Burrows), after gunmen kill the cute boy's paw. Delivering the lad to relatives, sharply outfitted Dorothy Malone (as Lorna) and sheriff husband Cameron Mitchell (as Fred Miller), leads "Rifleman" Egan from "Shane" to "High Noon" territory. Angie Dickinson and DeForest Kelly have bang-up roles. With Charles Marque Warren at the reigns, "Tension at Table Rock" knows its turf.

****** Tension at Table Rock (10/3/56) Charles Marque Warren ~ Richard Egan, Dorothy Malone, Cameron Mitchell, Billy Chapin

This superb '50s western is what I term a "minor masterpiece". By that I do not mean that it is inferior, rather that its "B" status will inevitably always relegate it to side discussions when the "big" westerns are brought up. But a very convincing argument can be made that this, and many other '50s "B" westerns-including in my view almost all of the Audie Murphy ones-are the absolute pinnacle of the genre.

Other reviewers have given good accounts of the plot so I will instead mention: the marvellous cast (DeForrest Kelly was underused as a westerner-marvel at his performance); the tension that I think is due to the modest running time and the quick, simple scenes that just flow so naturally; great, bright colour (I loathe the dark modern movies); a second-to-none score from an age when there were great film composers; all the essential elements are here-the boy, the tortured hero, believable domestic tensions, the baddies-you just care about these characters.

Every time this appears on British TV I seem to watch it afresh and discover more subtleties.

Minor masterpieces are not that much more common than major ones. Do not miss this movie.

Frank Gruber's novel "Bitter Sage" becomes highly-engrossing western from R.K.O. Richard Egan (amusingly expressionless, and cutting a mighty figure in his cowboy garb) plays a gunslinger whose best friend turns on him, ending with the friend shot dead; hoping to escape his reputation as a coward, Egan's Wes Tancred first goes to stay with a lonesome rancher and his son (ending in a rather unfair violent episode), later winding up in a town under the fear-grip of a nasty bunch of rowdies who invade the territory every so often during their cattle drive. Combining several familiar scenarios (such as those for "High Noon" and "Shane"), the movie nevertheless gets quite a bit of sagebrush excitement pumping, with the viewer completely on Egan's side (if this film didn't break handsome Egan as a big Hollywood name, it should have). Billy Chapin (from "The Night of the Hunter") is excellent as the lad who takes a shine to Tancred, and Dorothy Malone is also good as a lonely sheriff's wife. Eddy Arnold hauntingly sings the theme song, which plays a major part in the proceedings. Predictable, perhaps, but it's a formula that works when it is done right, and here it is done right. *** from ****

As a director, Warren(Little Big Horn,1951) was either very hot or cold. He's hot here. The tension rises as the town braces for the insurgence of rowdy, often deadly cattlemen and copes with a sheriff who doubts his courage. Egan is superb as the man who has killed a blood-thirsty outlaw, now turned legend. There is enough action on hand to satisfy all and a rousing score by Dimitri Tiomken. One of the good ones.