Showdown

"Neither one of you can make it alone.... maybe together you might make one good man... pull you apart ...it's like an oyster..... You're a couple of shells sharing one set of guts"

Things turn bad for a couple of drifting cowboys when they go into town to cash their pay.....real,real bad.

Excellent hard boiled Noir tale of the drifting cowboy hard luck trail with a very sinister edge. Some great massive landscapes position the claustrophobic anxiety and ultimate insignificance and futility of this nasty human story.

Audie gives one of his strongest performances and delivers some excellent patois dialogue full of cowboy logic and figuring. Chas Drake is great as the weak willed problem gambling pard.

Harold J stone is frightening and relentless as gang boss LaSalle and Skip Homier, is very disturbing as one of the stupid sadist henchman.

Strother Martin gives an excellent performance as pathetic town drunk Charlie Reeder and the scenes with his hard talking children are disturbingly frank.

Kathleen Crowley proves to be an excellent casting choice as pathetic ruined Estelle.

This is my favorite Audie Murphy western and I think one of his best films.

I loved this movie. Having watched so many old westerns recently that lacked much realism, I found this to be quite a hard edged and grim atmospheric piece that I really enjoyed. Audie Murphy with his baby face can be very convincing and was perhaps a better actor than I previously remembered from when I was young, and I'm constantly having to remind myself that he was the most decorated American soldier of World War II. Kathleen Crowley,who I had forgotten about, was quite sexy in a mature way, and I grew to like her as her part went on. There's a great cast of old character actors who never fail to please in old westerns, Harold J. Stone, Skip Homier, L. Q. Jones, Strother Martin and Charles Drake. There's not a lot to not like I thought, although I kept thinking this would have been so much better in colour and wide screen which let it down just a little bit. I thought it was quite tense throughout, mainly brought about by the fact that Murphy is chased (and I love chase pictures) throughout the film by various characters and for the most part he has to outsmart his opponents and overcome them in spite of the fact that he rarely has the chance of acquiring a weapon. Very well made on what appears to be a low budget.

Partners Audie Murphy and Charles Drake wind up in a jailbreak with Harold Stone and his gang. When they find out that Drake has $12,000 hidden with his girl, Kathleen Crowley, they send Murphy to fetch it. But she wants the money, too.

I have some issues with how the situation is set up, but once it starts moving, it's pretty good: people doing what they're doing, and story being the conflict that occurs when their paths intersect and no one will walk away. It's why director R. G. Springsteen was still directing this western, the last one released under the Universal-International banner: a good eye, story sense, and ability to get good performances out of actors, even when the lines are overblown. Producer Gordon Kay may have ordered this shot in black & white to save some money, but cameraman Ellis Carter shoots the Alabama Hills as dry and dusty.

Showdown is directed by R.G. Springsteen and written by Bronson Howitzer. It stars Audie Murphy, Kathleen Crowley, Charles Drake, Harold J. Stone, Skip Homeier, L. Q. Jones and Strother Martin. Music is by Hans J. Salter and cinematography by Ellis W. Carter.

Plot has Murphy as Chris Foster who has to get 12,000 dollars in stolen bonds from the ex-girlfriend of his partner, Bert Pickett (Drake), or the gang holding him hostage will kill him.

Filmed in black and white, something which didn't sit well with Murphy, this turns out to be a well photographed (the sumptuous back drop of the Alabama Hills, Lone Pine) low budget Oater of interesting ideas. The outdoor prison used here - criminals chained by neck collars to a pole in the center of town - is refreshingly original and a superb plot device that thrusts good guys (Chris and Bert) and bad guys together as a unit, for a while at least that is...

Trouble is, is that this is only a small section of the story which occurs at the pic's beginning. We get some exciting action and character laying foundations for the inevitable break out, and then it moves away from the jail scenario. The premise is so good one kind of hankers for much longer of this story angle, maybe even for the story to have been different and made this the bulk of the movie as a character piece - with the break out and subsequent held to ransom aspect in the last third. But I digress whilst forgetting this is a 1960s low budget job.

Narrative contains themes of addiction, tortured love and blind loyalty, which is credit to the writing of the wonderfully named Bronson Howitzer (really Ric Hardman!). However, the romantic thread bogs things down since it comes off as nonsense, with Crowley - as lovely as she looks - utterly unbelievable in the Western setting. Worse still is the head villain played by Stone, who not only makes preposterous decisions, he's also just not very villainous into the bargain. Still, Murphy is on good enough form and he's backed up by some notable genre performers.

A mixture of the usual good and bad for a Murphy 1960s Oater, but enough here to make it a comfortable recommendation to fans of star and genre. 6.5/10

Audie Murphy was reportedly furious when he learned that "Showdown" would be in black and white for budget reasons. But the b&w seems appropriate for this western because Murphy's character is the perfect film noir hero. He usually played a gunfighter with a troubled past, a lawman, or a combination of the two but here he is Chris Foster, an ordinary cow puncher who just wants to collect his pay and celebrate with his pal Bert Pickett (Charles Drake). Because of Bert's drunken misbehavior, he and Chris have to go to "jail" which in the little New Mexico town means a post in the middle of the street with chains bolted to it and an iron collar for the prisoners. It is a very visually arresting (if you will pardon the expression) image. Also chained to the post is the notorious outlaw Lavalle (Harold J. Stone) and his gang which includes Foray (L.Q. Jones) and Caslon (Skip Homeier). When Lavalle and friends escape, Chris and Bert have to go with him putting them on the run from the law. From there, Chris tries to keep himself and his friend alive - not to mention clear their names - as they attempt to buy their way out with some bonds stolen from an express office. There is even, if not a femme fatale, a cynical dame who could help the two men out of their trouble but is unable to trust what Chris tells her. Now, if that's not a noir plot, I don't know what is. Noir, noir on the range. Not one of Audie's best, neither one of his worst (so far I haven't found a "worst"). But as always, Audie Murphy is a charismatic lead actor. The cinematographer is Ellis W. Carter. Location shooting was done at Lone Pine, California which is a good match for the film's setting in New Mexico, especially in the desert views.