The Moonlighter

It seems hard to imagine that in the era of such great westerns as Shane and Wagonmaster a film like The Moonlighter could have been so lacking. This film is let down in nearly all of its scenes by its script. Yet while the script falters, Roy Rowland kind of saves the film through directing some interesting action scenes, including an opening lynching that is fairly riveting to watch, as well as a later fistfight between MacMurray and Ward Bond and horseback riding through a cascading waterfall, all done in decent black and white by ace cinematographer Bert Glennon. It's completely puzzling that the story behind the lynching is dropped in favor of the one about Fred, his brother, and Barbara Stanwyck, a strange love triangle. The roles of MacMurray and the actor who plays his brother should have been reversed, with the younger brother playing Fred's part as the moonlighter (cattle rustler) and Fred playing the loser bank clerk. Yet by the end of the film, it seemed at least slightly better than it was looking like it was going to be. Stanwyck looks convincing in a pretty decent rifle fight even if her affair with moonlighter Fred MacMurray is not anywhere near as hot as it was with him when they were in Double Indemnity.

One wonders why Warner Brothers chose to make The Moonlighter in 3-D and yet not bother with color. That almost to me seems self defeating if you're trying to lure people out of their homes and away from their television screens.

And why do this on a minor western? Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck who made the classic Double Indemnity for Paramount almost a decade earlier set off no sparks in The Moonlighter. MacMurray is in the title role and when one is a Moonlighter one is a cattle rustler who plies his trade during the evening hours. Either way it can get you lynched as a mob from the town where MacMurray is in jail does, but to the wrong guy thinking it's him.

Which allows him to take some revenge on those that wanted to do him in, like Clint Eastwood in Hang 'Em High. Still a wanted man Fred goes back to the old home town where he wants to take up bank robbery and visit his sweetheart Barbara Stanwyck. But she's now seeing his brother William Ching.

Nevertheless Fred does attempt a robbery with old outlaw colleague Ward Bond. After that the plot gets so ridiculous that I almost dare you to see it.

In color it would have been better, but there is a nice sequence at a waterfall involving the stars that must have been great in 3-D. But for my money it's not enough to make up for a really ridiculous plot in a film that neither star thought highly of.

Cattle rustler outwits a lynch mob and takes refuge with his Ma and kid brother; he reacquaints himself with a former sweetheart--but after he's involved in a bank robbery, the girl gets herself deputized and vows to bring him in "dead or alive". Mediocre western rides a familiar trail, the only hook for an audience (today, and most likely in 1953 as well) being the casting of the leads. Fred MacMurray is a terrific failed bad guy, his look of incredulousness suiting his hulking frame, while Barbara Stanwyck acquits herself well in cowgirl duds and handles both horse and rifle exceptionally well. Not a barn-burner by any means, and saddled with a stodgy direction from Roy Rowland, but an interesting b-item for admirers of the stars. ** from ****

Wes Anderson (Fred MacMurray) plays a "moonlighter," which is a person who rustles cattle by moonlight, that is arrested and awaiting trial when a lynch mob after his head storms the jail. The mob doesn't know which prisoner is the moonlighter, so they wind up hanging the wrong man while Wes escapes. He returns later to seek revenge on the members of the lynch mob. He's injured in the process which leads to his reuniting with his ex-girlfriend (Barbara Stanwyck), who is now engaged to Wes' younger brother.

Disappointing 3D western that features the two leads from Double Indemnity but doesn't deserve to even be discussed in the same breath as that classic. It starts out well enough with an exciting opening twenty minutes or so but it all goes downhill after that and becomes a predictable and boring melodrama. The stars are better than this material. No clue why it was in 3D as there's nothing particularly impressive about any of the visuals.

Anyone else but Barbara Stanwyck would have delivered her character's lines and they would have sounded completely corny. Somehow she always sounds believable. It's not a great story, but not bad, until the ending. It simply fell flat and was disappointing. I was expecting more.