Gli ostaggi

This classic western style is plenty of suspense as the dreaded final approaches and the protagonist realizes he must stand alone while town people surrounding him and nobody is willing to help him , except for a gorgeous girl . The narration is well adjusted , from the beginning , until the final showdown and being approximately developed in ninety minutes . It deals with a gunfighter (Ray Milland) , stranded in the desert, out when he sees an attacked stagecoach with its murdered passengers . He takes one of the horses to ride to town to report the massacre , but finds himself accused of it . He also finds himself framed of the murder of the local banker as well as wrongly suspected of a stagecoach slaughter , and winds up hiding in the basement of a house . As our starring moved by his will to prove his innocence , takes shelter and hides not alone but comely local marshal's daughter (Mary Murphy) . While the elderly sheriff (Ward Bond) , is very sick on his bed . Somewhere in the DARK a Bullet Drilled Home !

Vintage western style is full of tension as the breathtaking confrontation approaches , following the style of other stories in similar wake , that's why it results to be a ¨High Noon¨ (1954 , Fred Zinnemann) variation -that was a relentless allegory and criticism of HUAC black list- along with ¨Silver Lode¨(1954 ,Allan Dwan) . As our protagonist realizes he must stand alone against impossible odds , as nobody is willing to help him , but they pursue him , as gunfighter's main hope lies in the trust of a beautiful woman who hides him while being wrongfully accused of murder and attempting to clear his name . Remarkably well-organised western in which not one single second is wasted and the tension is built up admirably ."A Man Alone (1955)" is a low-budget western with a tense , intriguing , thrilling and suspenseful storyline. This western thriller is competently built and Ray Milland has an outstanding acting in the character of a gunman who wishes redemption . The performances are top-notch and the viewer gets tense enough , adding an enjoyable love story . Being Milland's debut behind the camera , delivering a decent oater . Ray Milland gives a nice interpreation as the gunslinger who comes across the aftermath of a stage robbery, in which all the passengers were killed . His partenaire is the charming actress Mary Murphy , in her fruitful career getting to give earnest leading lady perfs opposite Tony Curtis in ¨Beachhead¨ (1954), and ¨Hell's Island¨ (1955) with John Payne and especially ¨The Wild one¨ with Marlon Brando . They are well accompanied by a great cast of notorious secondaries , such as : Ward Bond , Raymond Burr , Arthur Space , Alan Hale Jr. , Douglas Spencer and , of course , Lee Van Cleef.

This exciting motion picture was professionally directed by Ray Milland . Ray was a prestigious actor, but also a producer and a craftsman filmmaker. With this A Man Alone(1955) and subsequently Lisbon (1956), Ray Milland moved into another direction, turning out several off-beat, low-budget films with himself as the lead , notably this A Man Alone (1957) his Western debut , The Safecracker (1958) , Panic in Year Zero! (1962) and Hostile Witness (1969) . Rating : 6/10 . Less-than-notable , but acceptable , passable and decent enough . The flick will appeal to Ray Milland fans.

Just a brief correction on the above comments: A Man Alone was *not* Milland's only directoral experience. He also directed Lisbon (also starred and produced), The Safecracker (U.K., also starred), Panic in the Year Zero! (also starred) and Hostile Witness (U.K., also starred). Although solid pictures, none of these films made a strong impact on Milland's career.

Ray Milland makes use of his silent film experience to play the first half of this movie virtually without speaking. He plays the title character, a lonely man in ever sense as he finds a group of slain stagecoach passengers, is forced to kill the sheriff (Hale, Jr.), sees another man shot before his eyes, and ends up a man wanted for all the killings.

A good commentary on human weakness in the "psychological" tradition, but it gets to talky and melodramatic in the second half.

Good supporting cast headed by Burr, Murphy, and Bond hold up well to Milland's straightforward playing and direction.

A stark, fairly convincing western.

Notorious gunman Ray Milland comes upon the scene of a stagecoach massacre. Outlaws had robbed the stage and killed six people, including a mother and child. Milland frees the horses and rides one of them into town for help during a sandstorm.

The sheriff is laid up and a lout of a deputy, Alan Hale Jr., comes at Milland gun in hand without identifying himself. Milland starts shooting and wounds the deputy. After that it's a hunt for Milland in the town.

Of course he takes refuge in the one place no one is going to look, the house of the sheriff, Ward Bond and his daughter Mary Murphy. The house is under quarantine because Bond is down with yellow fever.

Milland helps Murphy nurse Bond back to health. During which news of the stagecoach massacre reaches town. And the hunt is renewed.

Milland gives a fine performance in this very grim western of a man on the run, mostly due to his bad reputation. Ray Milland also directed this film for Republic Pictures in its last days. Director Milland got some good performances out of such in the cast as Raymond Burr, Lee Van Cleef, Arthur Space, and Thomas Brown Henry.

A Man Alone has similar plot premises to both The Oxbow Incident and John Payne's Silver Lode that came out the year before. All three had to do with the terrible consequences of mob violence when due process is abandoned. Very telling stuff indeed coming out as it did at the tail end of the McCarthy era.

The film holds up very well after over 50 years and is recommended for western and other movie fans.

Ray Milland's early career was in mostly light romantic fluff but he did have Oscar success in The Lost Weekend. He and Ginger Rogers were fun in The Major And The Minor. He was properly creepy in Dial M For Murder. His later years were lost in terrible monster flicks and bit parts. In the midst of the lousy movies, he did make a Western that stood out. This one. He was actually pretty good in it and as his directorial debut it wasn't bad either. It's a shame that the director's best assets weren't better utilized. He kept one of my very favorite character actors in bed for most of the movie (Ward Bond) and Raymond Burr isn't on screen long enough for my liking. This role was one of many villains that Burr so splendidly played for many years until we see him as Perry Mason in 1957. Another great bad guy that gets some close-ups is Lee Van Cleef. In the 60's and 70's, we'll see lots of him in many Leone or Gemma "spaghetti" Westerns. His face says so much without saying a word.....an absolute necessity when you don't speak Italian. I guess that's why Eastwood did so well in spaghetti Westerns...he wasn't much of an actor back then. In this movie, Ray Milland plays an aging gunfighter (he's on foot) who comes upon the murdered victims of a stagecoach holdup. He rides one of the the stagecoach horses into town to get help. The nervous deputy (a younger Alan Hale, Jr) is summoned (after seeing Milland ride in on the stagecoach horse) and shoots at Milland as he dismounts. Milland shoots back and wounds the deputy. Thereafter, they hunt for him high and low and block all exits out of town. Milland unknowingly takes refuge in the sick sheriff's home (under quarantine) where his daughter is nursing him back to health. The scenes between Milland and the sheriff's daughter are well done. The outcome is not decided until the final minutes of the movie. It's a good movie for Ray Milland fans and if you like good bad guys and good character actors...this is a good one for you, too.