Kentucky Rifle

Modest low-budget Western in which a wagon is separated from its train when it breaks an axle deep in Comanche country. The unusual cast - Chill Will leads, Jimmy Cagney's sister provides support, Henry Hull plays a preacher, and the voice of Winnie the Pooh (Sheldon Leonard) provides what is presumably supposed to be comic relief - compensate for the bland but inoffensive material.

Director Carl J. Hittelman's idea of staging is usually just to line up his cast of veterans talking at each other as if on a proscenium. Visual interest is however supplied by the contrast between the attractive locations and studio sets straight out of 'Star Trek'.

Filmed at Vasquez rocks and on a sound stage - obviously two different places as the by play shifts from scene to scene. Different scenes; wagon train, axle building, sound stage and location shots all have a different color quality, as if different brands of film were used at each location.

The best actors are in the roles of sidekick, Preacher and wagon master, while the lead actor seems to be asleep and the Indians a far from fierce...

TV shows of the time had better action and stage sets... Wagon Train, with Ward Bond had better sets, action and acting.

Chill Wills and Henry Hull should have thrown the script back in writer's face...

Strangely enough, some of the best scenes are the wood work and minor blacksmithing required to put the axle on the wagon.

I suspect those scenes were borrowed from another movie, just as some of the wagon train scenes were borrowed.

Kentuckian Lance Fuller heads west with a wagon train and his one-hundred rifles meant for the settlers of California. When his wagon breaks an axel, he's forced to stay behind with a small disparate group and look for a large enough piece of wood to fix it, all the while contending with in-fighting and the lingering threat of Comanches.

This starts slow and only gets a little better as time goes on. Despite a few sparks along the way, this dull western never catches fire the way it should have. Chill Wills is good as Fuller's partner, but not good enough to inject much life into this very Luke-warm production. There is some good scenery though.

Viewers seeking out a nineteen-fifties color B-western can do a lot worse, but they can definitely do a heckuva lot better too.

This is an awful western. The plot reminds me of "The Last Wagon", but it is far from having the polish of that film. The cast includes Cathy Downs and veteran character actor Chill Wills and is largely wasted. Chill Wills' performance is particularly annoying. He spends much of his time spewing almost unintelligible praise for the Kentucky rifle. While the Kentucky rifle was surely a fine weapon, it is not exactly the gun that won the West.

The premise for this film is dumb. A wagon loaded with Kentucky rifles belonging to star Lance Fuller breaks down. The Comanches want the rifles. The Indians offer a deal. The guns for their lives. Surprisingly, those in the wagon are willing to make a deal. The Indians waste no time betraying the foolish Whites, but they don't get the rifles. After a battle in which many of the Indians are killed by the sure firing Kentucky rifles the Indians promise to allow the wagons to proceed in safety. This time they keep their promise.

Technically, this film has serious problems. Much of it was filmed indoors, and the sets have a cheap look to them. The artificial rocks have a particularly phony look about them. The lighting is confused. Daytime scenes turn to shadows without warning. This aspect of the film reminds me of "Plan Nine from Outer Space".

I rented this film twice. I wanted to see if it was as awful as I remembered it from the first time. It was.