Money, Women and Guns

This would have been a "prestige" western at the time, in color and Cinemascope, with recognizable stars. It keeps your interest despite the many broken promises. First of all, the Cinemascope lens was plopped down on soundstages, wasting the panorama. The title is misleading. "Money" figures in the plot, granted. But I counted only two "Women." Neither projected the woman in the lobby poster (a soiled dove stripped down to her skivvies), being, instead, hardy frontier stock. And "Guns" suggests action that never really materializes. Jock Mahoney was a legendary stuntman. He was pushing 40 by the time of this production, but still had a couple Tarzan roles in his future. You can see effortless grace in his movement, apparently weightless. Horseback, Mahoney appears to glide across the prairie hovering above his pounding steed. Mahoney's fight choreography was unsurpassed until the Hong Kong kung fu school a generation later. The script and direction simply declined to tap the resource. The fashion in westerns by the late '50s had shifted from action to the talk-burdened, angsty "psychological western." In the early '50s there was a glut of syndicated half-hour westerns to fill the maw of local programming until networks could supply their own content. These were unabashed orgies of fistfight, shoot-out and horseplay (I mean on horses), with surprising amounts of plot - and absolutely no suspense: the hero brought the bad guy to justice. Within their formula, these actioners were brilliant catalogs of stunt work. They far surpassed the action scenes in big budget big screen productions. (John Wayne, just for example, was a lousy stage fighter. He had this big roundhouse right that took forever to land. Hey, bad guy! Move out of the way! Duck and land a couple uppercuts before that punch completes its orbit!) Jock Mahoney as "The Range Rider" was hands-down the greatest of the syndicated cowboys. Simply mounting and dismounting were done with gymnastic flourish - even holstering his gun. No runaway stage went unboarded. No picket fence went unhurdled. No stick of furniture in a brawl went unsmashed. No monolithic boulder went unjumped up on or down from. These shows were the bridge between the astonishing physicality of the silent movie comedians and the flying fists of the chop-saki masters. By the late '50s, oaters dominated network primetime. They strove to stand out from each other by issuing odd weaponry, or creating weird hybrids: the urbane western, the spy western, the jazz western. (Nobody thought to bring back the singing cowboy.) "Money, Women and Guns" feels a lot like a pilot for a TV series. The story plays out episodically as our hero tracks down suspects in the murder of a rich old prospector. The suspects are also the beneficiaries of his will. We learn how the suspects were associated with the dead man. (Sort of a sagebrush "Citizen Kane".) Mahoney plays "Silver" Ward Hogan, a self-described "detective", not a bounty hunter or territorial marshal. Indeed, Hogan owes as much to Joe Friday as the Lone Ranger. The story is carried by the mystery. It also has some of the quality of "Law & Order" in that the first character suspected is never the murderer-unless, of course, the investigation circles back to him. I'm not saying it does or doesn't.

A prospector has been murdered. He has left a will splitting a quarter of a million dollars among five heirs. The problem is no one is sure who they are. Detective Jock Mahoney is assigned to track them down, and to figure out why the dead man chose them.

Maohoneyis rather stiff in his line readings, and his outfit looks odd, all velveteen and bright silver buttons for riding the range. Even so, it's an interesting Shaky A western from Universal, not only for the figuring out of the why of the mystery, but for some casting, including Kim Hunter, and James Gleason in his last screen role.

This was a fair western but Jock and Tim Hovey worked well together. He finally got his chance to show his stuff. Actually, my mom's favorite western was "Slim Carter" about a man changing his ways over a kid. Mr. Mahoney was in a lot of movies but for a long time you never saw his face, just his riding skill on a white horse. Eventually he was shown as a Texas Ranger chasing the Durango Kid over rooftops and finally jumping off a roof onto the white horse. Part of the time Jock was literally chasing himself. My favorite DK series was "Bandits of El Dorado". There were so many well known names..John Dehner,Fred Sears, Lewis, and of course...Clayton Moore, whose voice I recognized instantly as the future Lone Ranger. In the movie of this subject, Jock looked like a powerful man, large shoulders small waist, and could ride a horse like he was part of it. Thanks for letting me share.

Some thieves want to take the gold of a humble prospector, as they arrive in his mine and one of them takes his life . But before dying the prospector arranges to scrabble his will and to murder two of his assailants and while the third flees. Later on, a detective bounty hunter Silver Hogan : Jock Mahoney , is assigned the mission to track down the legitimate heirs and to solve who is the murderer who killed the old prospector. Along the way, the famous gunfighter Silver Hogan joins forces a young man : Tim Hovey and meets a beautiful widow :Kim Hunter and her child.

Decent Western with intriguing premise to discover a real heir as well as the nasty killer who robbed a loot of gold. It is a mystery, intriguing Western with whodunit touches. It contains enjoyable performances from a decent main and support cast. However, too much conversation and too little action , at times, although fights, crossfire and suspense are nice. And at the end the subsequent plot twist in which truth comes out, including the killer's true identity. This is a suspenseful and twisted Westen in which Jock Mahoney playing a two-fisted detective looking for a killer with unexpected consequences. Not very known actor Jock Mahoney was an acceptable player who had a passable cinematic career. When WWII broke out, he drafted as a Marine fighter pilot and instructor. In Hollywood he was a noted stunt man, doubling for John Wayne, Errol Flynn and Gregory Peck. Gene Autry signed him for the lead in his 78-episode The Range Rider TV. He tested to replace Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan but lost out to Lex Barker. In 1960 he played the heavy in Tarzan the Magnificent with Gordon Scott and his part there led producer Sy Weintraub to hire him as Scott's replacement. Finally, he played the title role in Tarzan goes to India and Tarzan's 3 challenges, doing his own stunts. Eventually, he went on working in spite of dysentery, dengue fever and pneumonia. However, by this time producer Sy Weintraub was looking a younger Tarzan and envisioning a future TV star he found Ron Ely, then by mutual agreement , the contract between Jock Mahoney and Weintraub was dissolved. Here Jock Mahoney is well accompanied by good secondaries such as : Kim Hunter, Gene Evans, Lon Chaney Jr, Tom Drake Jeffrey Stone, William Campbell, Judi Emerich, William Campbell, among others .

It packs a colorful and brilliant cinematography by notorious cameraman Philip H. Lathrop. As well as atmospheric musical score by Herman Stein and Irving Gertz, Universal's regular. This motion picture was professionally directed by Richard Barlett. He was a Western expertise as TV as Cinema. As he directed a lot of westerns, such as : Two-gun lady, The lonesome trail, The silver star, Joe Dakota aso starred by Jock Mahoney, the sam as this Money, Women and Guns. Rating 6/10. Decent, but not notable oater that will appeal to Western enthusiasts.

Money, Women and Guns is directed by Richard H. Bartlett and written by Montgomery Pittman. It stars Jock Mahoney, Kim Hunter, Tim Hovey, Gene Evans, Tom Drake and Lon Chaney Jr. Music is by Joseph Gershenson and CinemaScope photography is by Philip Lathrop.

A strange bag of oats is this one. The makers have offered up CinemaScope and parked up at Lone Pine to film it. The colour lensing is beautiful, while the story has promise unbound, yet it still struggles to come out in credit.

Story sees an old prospector murdered at pic's start (we don't see who done the deed), so in comes detective Silver Ward Hogan (Mahoney). Hogan sets out to find the killer and also an heir to the dead man's fortune.

And thus we have a sort of Hercule Poirot in the Wild West. Which is fun, and the mystery element is engaging and constantly strong. Yet the Scope potential is barely utilised, action is in short supply, and the acting performances - whilst adequate - reek of easy paycheck time.

Not a waste of time by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure as hell is frustrating. 6/10