Man from God's Country

George Montgomery has a shot taken at him while he's heading to Sundown. He has no idea why. He's on his way to visit his Civil War buddy, House Peters Jr., with not a care in the world, so everyone figures he's someone else, and that's why they're after him: everyone has a different reason, including saloon singer Randy Stuart (who takes quite a hankering to him) and freight operator Frank Wilcox, who's not looking forward to the railroad coming and detroying his business. Montgomery goes about his affairs with his open, friendly manner and shoots people only when necessary, usually when they're trying to shoot him.

It's a pretty good Allied Artist western, with beautiful camerawork by Harry Neumann, and a lot of subtext in the script about how honesty is the best policy. Montgomery, as always, is very good. He was so good in westerns that he was pretty much stuck in them. So long as they are as good as this one, I think that's a good thing.

Man From God's Country has George Montgomery fired recently as sheriff of one town going to visit a friend in another town, House Peters,Jr. who seems to be mysteriously under the thumb of Gregg Barton and his right hand man James Griffith who does the enforcement of Barton's will when needed. This is not a normal situation by any means and Peters' own son Kim Charney is troubled by it.

Of course the bad guys are all taken care of as you would expect in a B western. I have to say though that the plot and motivations of the characters were pretty muddled. Except for saloon girl Randy Stuart. She's working a plan that will put her with a winner no matter who comes out on top.

Montgomery never got the acclaim for his B westerns in the way Randolph Scott did. They vary in quality, some were good, over all Randolph Scott's were better. But this one from Allied Artists is near the bottom.

Man from God's Country is directed by Paul Landres and written by George Waggner. It stars George Montgomery, Randy Stuart, Gregg Barton, Kim Charney, Frank Wilcox, Susan Cummings, James Griffith and House Peters Junior. A CinemaScope/De Luxe production, with music by Marlin Skiles and cinematography by Harry Neumann.

Dan Beattie (Montgomery) is a former Civil War soldier who is working as the sheriff of Yucca. After being acquitted of murdering a rabble rouser, he quits on principle and heads towards the town of Sundown where he hopes to hook up with his old war buddy Curt Warren (Peters Jr). Upon arrival, though, Dan finds a town run by a shifty business man Beau Santee (Wilcox) who mistakenly suspects Dan of being in league with the railroad company who want to run a line through the town. This opens up a can of worms and friendships and families become in danger of being ruined.

Little known Oater from the end of the 50s, Man from God's Country is a standard B picture that never quite fulfils the promise of its themes. There's interesting threads within, though nothing that hasn't been dealt with better elsewhere in 50s Westerns. The railroad is the devil who patrols the edges of the frame, this causes no end of suspicion and treachery as "honest" Dan proves to be the catalyst for Sundown's secrets and lies to come tumbling out of the dust in a blaze of guns, fists and tears.

It's handled efficiently by TV director Landres, with Waggner's screenplay mature and not without merit. Cast are mostly run of the mill, though Montgomery (looking and sounding like a poor man's Charlton Heston) proves more than capable at being the macho cornerstone of this particular production, where just like Heston he could throw a believable punch. Filmed out of Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth, California, there's some nice exteriors photographed by Neumann, costuming and colour are very pleasing and at 72 minutes in length the film never has time to labour.

It's more about "potential" psychological characterisations than action, which is fine, all be it annoying since the characters just don't get fleshed out at all. What action there is is done in short sharp shock manner, and in truth the ending, which is never in doubt, is all too brief and not doing justice to the good versus bad thread that director and writer were striving hard to build upon. 6/10

Dan Beattie gives up his job to move further west and rejoin his old war buddy Curt Warren in the town of Sundown. At first mistaken for a railroad agent by Beau Santee, a Sundown businessman who wants to keep the railroad away from his town, Dan is nearly killed by Santee's henchman, Mark Faber. Dan discovers that his old pal Curt works for Santee. Even after learning Dan's true identity, Santee considers him trouble and plots to get rid of him. With the help of Curt's son Stony, Dan tries to get Curt to take a stand on the right side of the law.

George Montgomery is his usual dependable self as a hero and does well as a man mistaken for a railroad man, but I have seen better westerns of his such as Texas Rangers, Jack McCall, Desperado, Cripple Creek, Gun belt etc. Man from God's Country has a slow pace and lack bite, though there are some good characterisation and themes. It's a passable oater. James Griffiths, like usual, his excellent as a thug.

An old sheriff (George Montgomery) comes to a village in order to visit a friend who lives there. But when the people mistake him with a hated representative of the railway company, he gets in trouble with some local thugs. At first mistaken for a railroad agent by Beau Santee (Frank Wilcox) , a Sundown businessman who wants to keep the railroad away from his town, Dan is nearly killed by Santee's henchman, Mark Faber (James Griffith) .Montana...gun-raw...gun-ruled...gun hell! The shooting saga of Beattie, who bought the law to Sundown...murder town! Big Montana story !

It's an a so-so story with a brief touch of peculiarity , some decent characters, and atmospheric music score . This movie is a lot of fun to watch. One of the many low-budget Westerns shot throughout his career by the muscular Montgomery. This protagonist was a famous actor who starred B series called George Montgomery . He was born to Ukranian immigrants and was a heavyweight boxer previously becoming an actor . Besides was a magnificent craftsman and built and designed houses, plus a self-taught artist, creating bronze busts for famed actors . Unable to shake his image as a cowboy actor he starred in scores of films with titles like Belle Starr's daughter (1948), Dakota Lil (1950), Jack McCall (1953) and Masterson of Kansas (1954) at Columbia, and for producer Edward Small at United Artists. When not cleaning up the Wild West with his six-shooter he branched out into adventure films set in exotic locales . At the height of his popularity, George attracted as much publicity for his acting as for his liaisons with glamorous stars, like Ginger Rogers, Hedy Lamarr to whom he was briefly engaged and singer Dinah Shore , whom he married. He starred movies around the world and diverse genres : adventures (Watusi,Steel claw) , Warlike (Battle of Bulge, Hell of Borneo) and specially Western (Seminola uprising, Fort Ti, Last of badmen, Great duel in Durango ). In this run-of-the-mill Western in which George plays an ex-sheriff who , through a deal with a friend, gets involved in a land-grab for a proposed railroad in Sundown, Montana . Descendant of an authentic cowboy family, he studied interior decoration and was a boxer before dedicating himself to the cinema, under the auspices of the Republic. Interestingly, though he matured into a competent character actor, Montgomery ended up being much more appreciated among the Hollywood community for his role as a top-notch furniture builder, and even made quite a bit of money building sets for Columbia.

Being regular but professionally directed by Paul Landres . Landres is generally considered to be a prolific director of television episodes as ¨Lone ranger¨ , ¨Cisko Kid¨, ¨Maverick¨ , ¨Life and Legend of Wyattt Earp¨ . He realized his first feature in 1949 , a western , ¨Grand Canyon¨ genre in which he would not only excel but one where he would spent much of the rest of his career. Although Paul Landres couldn't be deemed an "A"-list director, his movies had a professionalism and a verve that many of those made by his fellow B directors lacked . He also filmed detective thrillers , Western as ¨Lone Texas¨, ¨Frontier gun¨ , action motion pictures and even a horror film or two as ¨The vampire¨, ¨The return of Dracula¨. Rating : 5 . Average but passable.