Flesh and the Spur

John Agar searches for the man who gunned down his brother, with a discarded gun his only clue. Along the way he hooks up with macho Mike Conners, an exiled Indian woman, and a snake oil salesman.

The characters spend way too much time talking and not enough time doing the things that make a western good! It picks up near the end but it's too late by then to salvage the picture.

The best thing about Flesh And The Spur, besides the title, is the saloon brawl between a cowpoke and Conners, in which they use spurs as weapons.

John Agar was a talented actor. This just comes to show how far his career had descended since being declared persona non-grata by Hollywood for his drinking and hell-raising.

Co-writer Charles B. Griffith was responsible for some of the best of Roger Corman's micro-budget films (The Little Shop Of Horrors, A Bucket Of Blood, Attack Of The Crab Monsters) and one of his most successful, Deathrace 2000. It's too bad he couldn't breath much life in this script.

The featured song, "My Brother And I" is by Ross Bagdasarian, who a year or so later bought a multiple speed recording device, adopted the stage name David Seville, and invented The Chipmunks!

This is a basic good Western film. It doesn't pretend to be anything classic, so it just delivers the basic action, scenery, and gorgeous damsels in distress that make for great male movie watching.

It begins with a man, whose face is never shown, breaking out of prison and possibly killing a guard, then definitely killing a farmer and stealing his revolver. The farmer's brother seeks revenge, and the only clue he has is the revolver, part of a matched pair.

He meets up with a Native American damsel in distress, whom he saves, and an ex member of a notorious gang, and then an old Wild West Show marksman, and together they whittle down the notorious gang which is led by the man with the stolen revolver.

There isn't a lot of mystery, as it is pretty clear who everyone is from the start, but the action and scenery is good, and the characters are worth following.

The titles to this movie says it was filmed in "Pathe Color." The version I saw was black and white.

That pretty much tells you all you need to know about this movie.

"Flesh and the Spur" is a low-budget 50s western and you know it had a low budget because it stars John Agar and 'Touch' Connors (Mike Connors' name before the graduated up to GOOD roles). It's far from well made but not horrible.

The film begins with one of the Random twins being murdered by some thug for his horse and gun. His identical twin (Agar) vows to find the man with the fancy gun that belonged to his brother and kill him. Soon after, he meets Stacy (Connors) and there is every indication that Stacy is bad. When they meet an Indian girl(?), she informs the twin that Stacy is bad...and he ignores her. In fact, never have I seen so many warning signs that someone is bad...but his new friend insists he's just peachy. What's next? Who cares...the film lost me due to some really wooden acting by Agar as well as the worst Indian character I've seen since William Shatner starred in "White Comanche". The lady sounds like she just graduated from charm school...and sounds about as Native American as the Kaiser!! A silly, dull and indifferently acted film (at best).

At the opening credits the viewer knew that this was going to be a low-budget film as the people appearing in flick came onto the screen in large case letters as if written on a neighbors typewriter. But even with the minimal action and the hefty dialog, this movie did provide a small amount of entertainment. So what if the acting was rough and the film appeared to be aimed at the adolescent male, the story was interesting and the twist at the end made for a compelling tale.

The story began with a prison break where a stripped-clothed male has escaped. The male, which we will learn was part of the Checker Gang, then kills a rancher in order to get the rancher's gun and horse. Now the brother of the rancher, Luke Random, vows to track down the convict and take his revenge.

Along the way Luke runs in to a man, Stacy Doggett, that is also looking for the Checker Gang, an Indian female that has been rejected from her tribe and an older traveling elixir man that has a daughter. These characters will ride together into situation that contain danger and death. All trying, in their own way, of getting at least one of the Checker Gang members.

As with this drive-in feature type movie of this generation, there are cowboys, Indians, villains and pretty girls with all having a share of some action. From a spur fight to a chick being tied up supposedly naked to a post, the teenage target group was pleased. But for the rest of us, it was a cheaply made movie that did its best to succeeded. And for the ending alone, they got all from the money spent.

NOTE- This movie was supposedly film in Pathecolor (unclear of the process of that system). The film I saw was in black and white plus was somewhat rough with many splices.