The Showdown

This movie makes my top-ten list of greatest westerns. Great acting from the usually laughable Wild Bill Elliot, great direction and awesome character development along with a good mystery. The subtle dialog from Elliot brings a new light to his acting ability.

Wild Bill Elliott plays the mysterious loner out to solve the murder of his brother. The identity of his brother's killer was less mysterious to this viewer than to Wild Bill. It was fairly obvious before the film was half way over who did the dirty deed. But who cares when one is being treated to the acting of Wild Bill, Marie Windsor, and Walter Brennan. Elliot's serious, stoic stage presence was perfect for dark films like this. Too bad better directors failed to recognize his potential. Windsor and Brennan provide strong supporting characters.

Too bad budget-cutting Republic pictures spent all their money on the script and cast of this surprising little sleeper. It left them none for badly needed location shots, or failing that, at least to improve on some of the poorly done process shots. Note the number of times the horsemen stand statically in front of a backscreen projection instead of riding across a natural scene These cost-cutters count here, because otherwise this is an unnoticed little gem not usually expected from the likes of Saturday-matinée Republic. The script is excellent with a number of surprises, and holds interest throughout. The main cast (Elliot, Brennan, Windsor), along with supporting players (Morgan, Williams, Ching) are as good as could be expected from the major studios. Only Nacho Galindo's buffoonish comic-relief suggests Republic's usual fare. Actually, this is a noir Western produced at a time when film noir dominated many urban crime dramas. The atmosphere here, especially the stormy opening scene, reminds me of the fine Bob Mitchum Western, Blood on the Moon, which also made good use of brooding night-time sets. Then too, Elliot's revenge-obsessed "bad good-guy" strikingly anticipates Randolph Scott"s running character in Budd Boetticher's cult Westerns of the late 1950's. Anyway, this is a surprisingly good little drama, despite the shortcomings.

This film begins on a cold, dark night with a former Texas State Policeman by the name of "Shadrach Jones" (Bill Elliott) in the process of digging up the grave of a man who had been killed just a week before. As it so happens, he is spotted by two cowboys named "Cap MacKellar" (Walter Brennan) and "Rod Main" (Harry Morgan) who immediately demand to know what he is doing. In response, Shadrach tells them that he needs to know the identity of the man buried in this grave in order to ascertain if it is his brother or not. However, it's when he tells them that he used to work for the Texas State Police that Rod becomes extremely hostile toward him which results in Cap intervening to prevent a shootout right there and then. That being said, since it is obvious that Shadrach is intent upon finishing up what he started the two cowboys ride off with Cap telling him that he hopes the man buried there is not his brother--so Shadrach can ride off before any trouble starts. Unfortunately, Shadrach soon discovers that the body in the grave is in fact his brother and--like Cap MacKellar feared--trouble soon begins which nobody seems capable of stopping. Now rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this turned out to be a pretty good Western thanks in large part to a number of good actors and some good mystery along the way. Admittedly, I would have liked a bit more suspense here and there but, even so, it still turned out pretty well and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

This could have been an excellent western movie had they not tried to be so cheap in production. Instead of filming on location with vaulting mountains and wide open scenes, we are left with filming on a back lot with very little scenery and projected background landscape. And with such gifted actors in most parts it was puzzling on why they put stiff actor Bill Elliott as the lead man. I know he has played the lead in many B-westerns but with the cast of actors in this film, he stood out like a sore thumb.

But passing on Elliott's mannequin performance, the rest of the cast seemed to flow effortless and made the story entertaining to watch. There was a few spots hard to watch but overall this film provided enough interest throughout to keep the viewer on the edge of the seat right to the end of the movie. Was actually expecting very little from this movie but was pleasantly surprised. This is a film that you ask yourself, What could have been?