Rimfire

There's quite a lot to enjoy in this quickly paced little spooky western. It all starts with an attempt to hijack the stagecoach, one that is luckily thwarted by "Harvey" (James Millican). One of those he rescues happens to be the neice of the local sheriff, and soon he finds himself deputised. "The Abilene Kid" (Reed Hadley), meantime, gets himself into a bit of bother with some marked cards, and after a cursory court hearing under the jurisdiction of the no-nonsense "Judge Gardner" (George Cleveland) is sentenced to hang. Now the film gets interesting. He was found guilty by public acclamation (i.e. A vote of those in the courtroom, rather than by a formal jury) - 11 to 6. Shortly after his execution, some of the eleven start to go the way of the dodo - and the townsfolk start to suspect a ghost! Could it be the "Kid" back for vengeance on this who wronged him? There's a decent sub-plot about some missing gold, too - just to keep it interesting, and a little romance with "Polly" (Mary Beth Hughes). The ending is a bit rushed, but hough the production is pretty basic and the acting really unremarkable, the whole is better than the sum of the parts and we are presented with an entertaining film for an hour.

The Abiline Kid is set up and convicted by a Kangaroo court for using marked cards. Executed by hanging, he seemingly returns as a ghost to terrorize and wreak vengeance on the guilty town that murdered him.

Rimfire is loaded with great character actors, including James Millican, Reed Hadley, Jason Robards Sr., and Fuzzy Knight, alongside two previous Universal monsters, The Werewolf Of London's Henry Hull and Glen Strange, the last of the classic Frankenstein monsters!

Although it's running time could (and should) have been stretched a little for greater suspense, this is still an entertaining, if compact, western whodunit with lots of great scenes.

It can also be viewed as sort of a forerunner (along with Django Il Bastardo) to Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter. In fact, the three would make a great triple feature.

"Rimfire" is a low-budget effort from Lippert. Much of their product was forgettable, but every so often they'd come u with a good one, and this is one of them.

There are no "stars", just a good cross-section of solid, reliable character actors, and that helps a lot. James Millican was a supporting actor in a lot of westerns, but he's the lead here and does a very good job of it. Velvet-voiced Reed Hadley is The Abilene Kid, a gambler framed and hung for cheating at cards, George Cleveland is a conflicted judge, Henry Hull is a crusty newspaper editor, and the rest of the cast is comprised of a variety of familiar western faces--among them Forrest Taylor, Fuzzy Knight, John Cason and Don Harvey--who have more screen time than they usually get, and they all acquit themselves well. There are several interesting plot twists, which you don't usually find in low-rent "B" westerns, and give the film the kind of atmosphere that, again, isn't usually found in "B" westerns. This was veteran director B. Reeves Eason's final film as director--although he did do some second-unit work and directed several episodes of TV series after it--and it's a good one to go out on. Well done.

This is a good little western from Lippert studios, and I don't understand the low rating by IMDb reviewers. The film is a mystery story and is well-written, taut and compact, and in only 64 minutes. The cast, led by James Millican, does a uniformly good job, and there is nary a bad acting performance in sight from the supporting cast. One is taken aback by seeing suave, urbane Reed Hadley out in the scrubbrush, but it turns out he's the suave, urbane gambler in the story.

Now, we're not talking MGM or Paramount here and so you have to consider economics, but production values are better than expected and there is a good deal of action during this just-over-an-hour affair. Overlook a couple of plot holes and a time-killing romance and you have an entertaining movie which has been unfairly neglected over the years. This was included in a DVD with "Little Big Horn", which is a better picture, but nevertheless, "Rimfire" is still a cut above.

Army officer James Milican comes to the small western town. He's undercover, looking for federal gold that went missing three years earlier. Sheriff Victor Kilian swears him in as a deputy to hide his true purpose. So, however, he is distracted by Kilian's niece, Mary Beth Hughes, and the entire town is distracted when gambler Reed Hadley is tried and hanged for cheating at cards. He pronounces a curse on the town, linking gold and death before he goes. Soon people are being shot by gold bullets fired from a rimfire gun, and a playing card is always found near their bodies.

B. Reeves Eason last big-screen feature as director has a lot going for it. There's a compelling story, the sort of cast that Lippert Pictures could assemble -- Henry Hull, Chris-Pin Martin, and Jason Robards Sr. All show up -- and some nice camerawork and brisk editing. Unfortunately, it's got a lousy conclusion to the plot, indicating the editing was a mite too brisk to make sense.