One Foot in Hell

Definitely agree with the many IMDBers below who feel that the most notable thing, by far, about this psychological western is Alan Ladd's descent into darkness. Pretty sure I've never seen Ladd be this rotten. That it works is tribute to Ladd's skill as an actor, a talent often buried beneath a ton of bad to mediocre movies. Every so often, as in "Shane", "Blue Dahlia" or "Glass Key", it would rise to the surface and it's interesting that those three films also feature Ladd in a shadier hue than usual, although nothing compared to his portrayal of vengeance driven evil here. With his ridiculous derby hat and dead voice and deader eyes his character is truly creepy.

Dragging the film down is a clunky script by Aaron Spelling (yes, THAT Aaron Spelling) and Sydney Boehm that asks you to buy that a town can turn from moral corruption to redemption on a dime, based on a scolding from Larry Gates' saintly doc. And the love scenes between Don Murray and Dolores Michaels start at cloying and work their way down from there. Also, in a sure sign of bad writing, potentially interesting subsidiary characters, like Dan O'Herlihy's articulate killer and Barry Coe's sadistic killer, remain potential rather than fully developed. There is a scene that suggests these two have a shared past but, unless I missed something, we never find out what it is. (That's called a story hole, in case you're wondering).

Ladd sure lingers in the mind, though. Enough to give this film a B minus.

I saw this film on TV a couple of nights before and I must say that either I never heard of it or I didn't remember about it. The story is rather good and somehow original for a western: a man that blames a whole town for his wife's death and while earning their trust he plans his revenge that will be accomplished with its complete destruction aided by a group of outcasts he has selected carefully. But the result comes out as a kind of "cheap" product.

If you consider that the 50's gave us perhaps the best westerns in Hollywood history ("High Noon", "The Gunfighter", "Shane", "3:10 to Yuma", "Warlock", "The Searchers" and so many others) "One Foot in Hell" comes out as a minor product. Perhaps with a more skillful director and therefore a strongest and less standard direction the picture would have worked well.

Alan Ladd (as the patient avenger) was not at his best in the 60's and his severe alcoholism problems showed in his clearly damaged psychical appearance. Don Murray (as one of the members of the gang) overacts in most of his scenes. Perhaps the best acting piece comes from pretty Dolores Michaels as a prostitute also a member of Ladd's group.

This film could have been better qualified perhaps if it had been released in the 40's just before the western genre took a high and serious impulse in the 50's with extreme good products. It looks cheap and minor for the 60's.

Alan Ladd's last western is this strange little item that did not get much play back in 1960, confined to second place on double bills. He should have done this one earlier when he was a much bigger box office name.

Ladd plays a settler traveling west and his wife comes down with some prairie malady. Going off to the nearest town he gets a prescription for a $1.87 worth of medicine. But then he runs afoul of some of the town louts and gets delayed long enough so that his wife sickens and dies.

The town fathers feel real sorry for him. In fact they feel so bad that they offer him the job of deputy sheriff. But when the sheriff dies and Ladd becomes sheriff it's the first step in an elaborate plan for revenge on the town. He hates each and every citizen of this place because of the death of wife Rachel Stephens.

Ladd puts together a gang in secret to rob the town bank at a proper moment when it's bulging with cash. Among others in his scheme are drunken cowboy Don Murray and working girl Dolores Michaels. Murray's part is very similar to the one he had the year before with James Cagney in Shake Hands With The Devil. In fact if you've seen that film, you know what happens in One Foot In Hell.

What could have been a great comeback role for Ladd goes for naught. I'm not sure it was his drinking at the time. More like it was wife Sue Carol who at this point was mismanaging his career. And face it, his day had past.

But next to what he was about to do over in Italy in Duel of the Champions, One Foot In Hell comes out like Stagecoach. It's not a bad film, as good as any of the B westerns that Audie Murphy was doing at this time. Still had he been 10 years younger and the film had been distributed differently, say with Paramount's studio power back in the day when he was their biggest star, One Foot In Hell could have been a classic.

As it is, it's not bad viewing. Note the script was by an up and coming television giant, Aaron Spelling.

The most amazing thing about this movie was Alan Ladd. And not in a good way. Probably because of his alcoholism Ladd was almost unrecognizable. Was this Shane?? Although he was only 47 he looked like a 65 year old out of shape grandpa. His acting seemed to have diminished as much as his looks. This film would have been a lot better with someone like Audie Murphy in the lead role. Sadly as Shane is my all time favorite movie and Ladds character my all time favorite character this movie was very hard for me to watch.

One Foot in Hell is directed by James B. Clark and written by Aaron Spelling and Sydney Boehm. It stars Alan Ladd, Don Murray, Dan O'Herlihy, Dolores Michaels, Barry Coe and Larry Gates. A CinemaScope/De Luxe Color production with music by Dominic Frontiere and cinematography by William C. Mellor.

Incensed by the circumstances which led to the death of his wife and unborn child, Mitch Barrett (Ladd) plots revenge against the whole town of Blue Springs.

Alan Ladd's last Western doesn't find him in the best of shape or on the best of form, but it's a most interesting and entertaining picture regardless. In a veer from the norm, Ladd is playing a man gone bad, fuelled by hatred and thirsting for revenge, Mitch Barrett assembles a small group of strays and ruffians and sets his plans in motion. He wins the trust of the town and operates behind the facade of the law. Along the way he is extremely callous, the value of life means nothing to him now, while inner fighting and romance destabilises the group until the big denouement arrives.

The pace sometimes sags and there's a distinct rushed feel about the final quarter (one main character annoyingly dies off screen?!), yet there's still a lot to like here. The CinemaScope production is nice to look at, there's some very good scenes such as those involving cattle and liquid fire, while the all round nasty edge to the plotting and characterisations (Julie Reynolds' back story is a shocker) keeps it from being run of the mill. It's not the big Western send off that Ladd fans would have wanted, however it's still a recommended Western to like minded genre fans. 7/10