Jack McCall, Desperado

Jack McCall Desperado is a truly revisionist look at the old west where Wild Bill Hickok's backshooting killer was really the good guy. George Montgomery plays McCall who according to this film was a much misunderstood man.

From the early silent days it was fashionable, especially in the B westerns like Jack McCall Desperado to take western characters of legend and fashion plots around their name that had absolutely nothing to do with the lives these people led. James Butler Hickok might not in real life have been a movie cowboy hero, but Jack McCall was nothing but a backshooting punk.

However in this story, Montgomery is a southern man who volunteers for the northern armies and then gets tricked by some southern troops into giving away northern positions. The fact that these guys are in Union Blue when he does it means nothing because he can't prove it. Later on Montgomery is chased to his southern mansion home where Sergeant Hickok kills McCall's father and his cousin James Seay his mother. And McCall's still a wanted man.

Even after the war is over Montgomery's a fugitive and Hickok played by Douglas Kennedy and Seay are in business. Hickok is now marshal of Deadwood City in the Dakota Territory where he's using his influence to betray the Sioux and get a nice Indian war started.

Jack McCall Desperado is an almost Kafkaesque revision of western lore with Montgomery as McCall as a bit of an idiot who constantly is getting tricked by much cleverer people than himself. It's far from a great western, but wow is it ever interesting.

A good-looking Columbia Technicolor western with a Civil War backdrop that for some reason calls it's central antagonists Jack McCall and Wild Bill Hickok.

Aside from being set in the wrong decade, viewers who saw Porter Hall or Lon Chaney as McCall would be surprised to see this new handsome and upright incarnation by George Montgomery. Somebody involved in the production must have seen a photograph of Hickok, since Douglas Kennedy in the role has the only authentic Wild West moustache in the film.

This western is a pretty good time waster but not more; don't expect to learn the true life of Jack McCall, the assassin of Bill Hickock, who shot him in the back during a poker game.... Don't expect to see this here. Imagine the hero of a western killing one of his pals with a bullet in the neck. Especially for a western produced in the fifties, and - the worst of the worst - monitored by the awful Sam Katzman who did not care at all about authenticity and historical facts. But don't worry, it is a good western, agreeable to watch for western buffs. George Montgomery does his job, as usual. Don't avoid it. Forget the true Jack McCall's fate.

Jack McCall Desperado is an interesting varient on the western story. It deals with the war of independence and the character of Jack McCall wrongly accused of being a spy.

Wild Bill Hickcock also makes an appearance as the friend of Jack's crooked cousin Bart.

The interesting blend of real people we have all heard of and their fictional and real lives make this a movie a little different from the ordinary western fair.

Also refreshingly different is the relationship between Rose, a girl who can take care of herself ie she holds up the jail to rescue Jack and tumbles from horses with a certain aplomb also!

All in all an unusual western in some respects that doesn't forget its origins and stays mainly true to formula.

For some unknown reason, in the 50s, there seems to have been an attempt to bring down the legend of Bill Hickok(see "I Killed Wild Bill Hickok, 1956). This entry plays fast and loose with history, with McCall as the framed good guy out to get villain Hickok. the time frame is all askew, starts in the Civil War and moves rapidly to Wild Bill's murder, which in reality took place in 1876, eleven years later. But that's not all; McCall was eventually hanged for his crimes, and not near as good-looking as Montgomery. Pass on this one.