La raya de la muerte

Better known as a film editor over five decades, Gene Fowler Jr. earned himself a decent resume as a cult director, with seven titles over a three year period, none truly outstanding, but all deserving of praise for one reason or another. 1957's "Showdown at Boot Hill" was preceded by his debut, "I Was a Teenage Werewolf," and followed by "Gang War" (also with Charles Bronson), "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" (his best known), "Here Come the Jets," "The Rebel Set," and lastly, the mediocre Western "The Oregon Trail" (again with John Carradine). "Boot Hill" is chiefly remembered, if at all, as Bronson's very first starring role in a feature film, quickly followed by Roger Corman's better known "Machine-Gun Kelly," and already at this early stage, finds himself immersed in a role which allows him to be gritty and short on talk. Bronson's Deputy U. S. Marshal Luke Welsh arrives in Mound City with a warrant for the arrest of wanted outlaw Con Maynor (Thomas Browne Henry), guilty of killing three men in other territories. He quickly finds his man dining at the hotel and flirting with waitress Sally (Fintan Meyler), hardly batting an eye when the Marshal makes his presence known, almost bragging about his exploits as he gets ready to leave. Determined to collect the $200 bounty on Maynor's head, Welsh allows the outlaw to draw now or journey to St. Louis to be hanged; the expected result has Con Maynor dead, but the hostile townspeople unwilling to identify the corpse. Forced to stick around to try to collect his hard won bounty, Welsh learns how charitable Maynor was in this territory, and how protective they feel toward him, even acknowledging his murderous ways. Bronson's romance of waitress Sally tends to slow down an already actionless Western, but the top notch script by Louis Vittes, low key but sharp, allows the entire cast to shine (incredibly, "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" was the only Fowler title not written by Vittes). Robert Hutton gets second billing as Maynor's number one defender Sloane, praising the dead man for restoring his lost herd of cattle with one he no doubt stole himself, but allowed Sloane two years to pay off. Paul Maxey's part as the de facto judge makes the inquest appear as legal as possible considering everybody lied! Best of all is John Carradine, an old friend of the director's father (all part of the John Barrymore Rat Pack), playing the challenging role of Doc Weber, town barber, who does more shaving and undertaking than he does doctoring. Looking fairly dapper in moustache and beard, Carradine simply lights up the screen, and develops a wonderful rapport with Bronson, working together again in Carradine's very last Western, 1977's "The White Buffalo," again as an undertaker (with Irish accent). Perhaps their best scene together is in the barber shop, Weber informing the Marshal about the dead man's brother arriving at Boot Hill for the funeral, despite the protestations of his customer: "now, I didn't mention any names did I?" He had fine roles in other Westerns of the 50s ("Johnny Guitar," "Thunder Pass," "Stranger on Horseback," "The Kentuckian," "Hidden Guns," and "The Proud Rebel"), but "Showdown at Boot Hill" ranks on top as his best. As for Charles Bronson, this late 1957 production began a brief starring spree, with "Machine-Gun Kelly," "Gang War," and "When Hell Broke Loose," followed by his one TV series lead, MAN WITH A CAMERA. His feature career continued with supporting roles for another decade, but at least his vehicles would grow in stature ("The Magnificent Seven," "Battle of the Bulge," "The Dirty Dozen") before European stardom beckoned with Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West."

Supposedly Charles Bronson's first starring role, this involves him playing a bounty hunter named Luke Welsh who has a warrant for a man named Con Maynor (Thomas Brown Henry). Maynor had killed two other men in another town so now he has to answer for that. Welsh meets up with Maynor in the local dining hall/saloon and out draws and kills him. It was all fair and square since Maynor drew first, and Bronson is later exonerated at a local hearing.

The only problem is that the town is not co-operating when Welsh tries to collect proof of Maynor's death in order to collect his bounty. It's seems Maynor was very popular in this town and the people resent Welch for what he did. They take pot-shots at him in the dark while the sheriff stands by and does nothing. See, the sheriff liked Maynor, too.

But Welsh won't leave until he collects that $200 bounty and in order to do that, he has to find out why this town is enamored with Con Maynor. It's later revealed that Maynor stole and killed in other communities and then did good things for this town with a lot of his stolen wealth. A kind of twisted 'Robin Hood' would be the best way to describe it. In other words, Welch is dealing with a corrupt, sleazy town that's in deep denial about Maynor and it's own past.

This oater starts off well, but then it engages in histrionics and psychological emotionalism, especially when Welch tries to 'find himself' while he falling in love with a local woman named Sally (Carole Mathews). It gets to be a bit much as we see the Bronson character do a lot of unnecessary hand-wringing while getting away from all the local action at hand.

At 73 minutes, it could have been cut to an hour which would have made the story tighter and not meander off into unnecessary directions. Besides, not much else happens at Boot Hill other than Maynor getting buried there.

With John Carradine as the barber-undertaker and Robert Hutton as the town foil.

5 out of 10

In his first starring role, Charles Bronson is a US Deputy Marshal who comes into a small western town, hunting Thomas Browne Henry. There's a bounty on him for killing three men, and when he draws on Bronson, Bronson shoots him down. The town doesn't like it. Henry was a popular figure, ready to sell a string of cattle below price, and wait for his money, so long as you didn't ask where he got them. No one will name him, and so Bronson waits around for a positive identification, so he can collect his bounty money. While he waits, he falls in love with Fintan Mayler, the shy daughter of the town's local bad woman, Carole Matthews. While he waits, there's lots of philosophizing from John Carradine, the town's barber, doctor, and fellow who reads over graves.

Gene Fowler Jr's movie makes its points about violence and loneliness, but does so in too obvious a manner, afraid to let the audience draw its own conclusion. There are plenty of swooping crane shots by cinematographer John M. Nickolaus Jr., straight out of HIGH NOON to make sure we realize this is an important psychological movie.

The performances are good, but everyone tries too hard to make this a superior movie.

If you like Western movies then Showdown at Boot Hill will not disappoint.

Yup, it's an old fashioned plot with the usual ingredients of gunfights, good guys, bad guys, sheriff and a love interest (no Indians here though!). That makes the movie predictable but then it was made in 1958, right?

The acting is above average with Charles Bronson delivering on his role. That the movie was filmed in black and white makes events a little more dramatic.

Ok, so it's an old film with a plot typical of its time. Nonetheless, if you enjoy the Western film genre then you can do a lot worse than the short (less than 80 minutes) Showdown at Boot Hill!

Showdown at Boot Hill (1958)

** (out of 4)

Deputy Marshal Luke Welsh (Charles Bronson) is working as a bounty hunter when he finds the man he's been looking for in a small town. The man resists the arrest so Welsh is forced to shoot him, which doesn't sit too well with the people of the town who decide to make it rough on the bounty hunter. SHOWDOWN AT BOOT HILL was the first of two films that Bronson made with director Fowler (the next was GANG WAR) and it's an okay Western even if it doesn't feature anything you haven't seen hundreds of times before. I think the main draw is going to be fans of Bronson who are wanting to see his stuff before he became a major Hollywood star. It doesn't hurt any that the actor gets to act with John Carradine, another man who certainly knew about the highs and lows of the business. Cult fans are certainly going to enjoy seeing the two men together and thankfully they share quite a few scenes. At just 72-minutes the film pretty much has a start (Bronson getting his man) and an end (the showdown) but what happens in between is rather bland and doesn't really go anywhere in terms of action. Sure enough there are a couple of the dead man's friends who take exception and come after Bronson but the action is rather tame and never overly exciting. There's also way too much dialogue because more times than not we have supporting characters just sitting or standing around talking about what they should or shouldn't do. I know this was a low-budget movie but the genre turned out one small budget after another so they could have at least bumped the energy level up a bit. I was surprised to see how well the romance between Bronson and a local waitress (Fintan Meyler) turned out. There's a subplot about Bronson's shyness with girls and his depression about being short that's rather interesting to see simply because most won't be use to seeing Bronson play a softie. The actor does a pretty good job with the part even though it really doesn't ask him to do too much except act tough. Again, Bronson handles some of the more dramatic stuff but we're not talking Shakespeare here. Carradine pretty much walks through his role as a barber/doctor/preacher and he's always fun to see. Carole Mathews is pretty good as the love interest's mother and Robert Hutton plays one of the bad guys. If you're expecting the work of John Ford then it's best to look elsewhere because this movie doesn't offer anything too original. Fans of Bronson and Carradine are going to be the ones who want to check this one out.