A Man for Hanging

A Man for Hanging is an engrossing often gruesome Film Noir Western. The camera work and score are good. The cast of seasoned professionals is excellent, including Peter Breck as the monster killer, Michael Pataki as a scummy Mexican bandit and David Macklin as a hunky, hot headed but sensitive hero.

I found the movie supremely pointless. The camera work was uninteresting and there was very little character development. By the end of the movie I was still unable to tell the members of the posse apart. The only mildly interesting character was the bad guy played by Peter Breck, and the details of his personality, aside from enjoying killing lame horses, beating/raping young ladies, and having an insane laugh most of that was only hinted at.

A posse pursue a disfigured, psychotic outlaw as he rapes and murders his way across the state. There's no denying just how cheap and hastily put together this western looks. Obviously an exploitative cash-in the plethora of cynically violent westerns that were served up during the seventies, yet one wonders what reliable professionals such as Breck, Macklin, Carr, and TV's Big Valley director Mazucca ever hoped to salvage from this glaringly half hearted project. At least Breck puts in a shift with some optimistic over acting as the oddly masked villain and his appearances partly justify the reason not to doze off completely through such 'thrilling' scenes as a shoot-out that is only slightly less dramatic than a children's pretend gunfight in a school playground or the endless treks across the same bit of sand by fatigued, demotivated looking actors and horses. Watchable for unintended reasons but I wondered what the death-or-glory hack Al Adamson might have come up with if the tumbleweed had rolled the pages of Joan Gardner's screenplay in his direction.

I only have this on VHS currently can't find it on DVD or Blu, i don't know i like it. Well i like Nick Barkley. What's not to like? I like the ballad at the beginning. Its a bit of a mess story wise, but for him i'd watch anything this gorgeous hunk of goon is in.

I agree wholeheartedly with another reviewer here who wrote this film should be bagged and thrown in the nearest garbage can. Absolute garbage, despite a really good cast. What were they thinking when they signed on to this potato? The terrorizing rape scenes are awful, and seem geared to a sick audience. It is also one of the stupidest westerns I've ever seen, especially the gun fights where both sides blaze away dozens of rounds without ever reloading. We have a station master who goes about the country side unarmed. His wife doesn't have a gun, either. A beautiful gal played by Brooke Bundy who just happens to be target practicing alone by a road, but later has the amazing ability to leave after all the good guys but beat them to the bad guys' rendezvous. A deputy sheriff who makes Festus look like a rocket scientist. I have to admit, though, there were some nice looking horses in this movie.