Ein Kerl wie Dynamit

The Restless Breed is directed by Allan Dwan and written by Steve Fisher. It stars Scott Brady, Anne Bancroft, Jay C. Flippen, Rhys Williams, Leo Gordon and Jim Davis. Music is by Edward L. Alperson Junior and cinematography by John W. Boyle.

1865 and Mitch Baker travels to Mission in Texas to find out who murdered his father who was working for the Secret Service. His father was investigating the operations of "Newton's Raiders", a gang of gun runners fronted by Ed Newton (Davis) who are supplying arms to Emperor Maximillian in Mexico. Mitch has no intention of upholding the law, he has only one thing on his mind; revenge!

"Yer a wild eyed hooligan looking for a cheap revenge, not to satisfy the ghost of your father, but your own hurt - warped - disturbed ego".

Another of Allan Dwan's vastly under valued Westerns, it's also the last of his genre offerings. Production value is not high end, the Pathe Color is poor, the sets sometimes wobble and it features one of the most frustratingly awful music compositions laid down for a 1957 Oater, but Dwan could quite often craft a silk purse out of a sow's ear. So it be the case here.

The Haunted Room.

It's a standard revenge tale at its core as angry young Mitch Baker arrives in town and promptly sets about dismantling all the scumbags who cross his path. He's quick on the draw, he bristles with machismo and he's catching the eye of the ladies. Giving this simplest of formula extra weight is a religious angle, and no it's not eye rollingly preachy. Mitch finds lodgings with Reverend Simmons (Williams great) and his adopted brood of half-breed children, the eldest of which is a sexually awakened Angelita (Bancroft).

Mitch is quickly seen as some sort of Religio Revenger, the younger members of the Simmons gathering thinking he's an Archangel. Thus Mitch, his revenge fuelled objective at the forefront of his mind, finds a number of other emotions battling to take control of his soul. The arrival of Marshal Evans (Flippen under used but a welcome and telling addition late in the play) cranks up the story considerably and Dwan builds it skillfully in readiness for the big showdown, where we are not sure exactly how it will pan out.

Along the way there's plenty of action, with Dwan not concerned with over-kill sequences, plenty of sexual tension, and there's devilish nods towards the perils of temptation. No masterpiece here, but for Western lovers this has so much to recommend. Sadly it's under seen and the only existing print available doesn't do it any favours. 7/10

For his last western, veteran director Dwan transforms Fisher's crude revenge plot into a gentle comedy. Brady is the son of a government agent out to revenge his father's death, Davis the outlaw leader who inhabits a Mexican-American border town and Bancroft the girl who gets her man. Made on a minuscule budget, the film has an austerity and formality about it that few films achieve. As a delightful touch (and a throwback to the days of silent cinema)Dwan has the characters appear to be perpetually eavesdropping on each other. A marvellous film.

The music is by the producer's son, Edward Alperson Jr.

Phil Hardy

There is an obvious absence of finance behind this film but it excels for all that. Somehow, even the obvious stage/studio setting enhances the experience of this modest effort. It is a play... and if the audience is to be drawn in... it will be through the characterization, the dialogue and the drama... not through stunning visuals and computer generated crowd scenes.

The fundamental flaw is the age of the two principals. Bancroft was 26 at the time this was filmed and Brady 33. Angelita (Bancroft) is supposed to be a "child" of about sixteen and Mitch (Brady) is playing the part of an educated young man (late teens ?) so incensed by his father's murder that he is in danger of "taking the wrong road". It's remarkable... when you contemplate that this detail of age is fundamental to the story and to the drama... that the principals carry the thing so well and that it still works.

For its time, it must have been something of a "blood fest" with people being killed from the outset. And again, they get it right. Lots of blood, guts and gore does not add significance to the fact that someone is killed or murdered.

Some nice touches of humour and some becoming self-parody by some of the actors adds to the stage play quality of the film.

Edward L. Alperson turns his clumsy hand to westerns in this very ordinary film.

An attorney and a marshal are baffled as to how a marshal was killed in a border town densely populated by bandits. The attorney whose father it was vows revenge.

He repays the kindness of a missionary by sexually assaulting his adopted daughter.

What looks like Epstein from "Welcome Back Kotter" is the town sneak who peeps through windows but is too cowardly to shoot, but this potentially interesting subplot is not really developed.

The attorney wins through a clumsy and obvious subterfuge.

Young Scott Marlowe was already hanging out with hoods well before 'A Cold Wind in August' when he here played one of Jim Davis's gang. Unfortunately for Anne Bancroft Mrs Robinson was still ten years away in the future, and she decided she'd had it with Hollywood and abandoned the screen for the stage after playing yet another dusky maiden in this good-looking western potboiler into which veteran director Dwan managed to insert the occasional visual flourish in his final western.

The biggest surprise is Myron Healey playing a good guy for a change as the honest sheriff squaring up against Davis' mean-looking sidekick Leo Gordon.