Mississippi

During the American Civil War, the Quantrill's raiders use the spy Jeff Travis (Randolph Scott) to plunder the city of Lawrence, in Kansas, and Travis leaves Quantrill when he sees the massacre of the town. After the war, Travis believes that he is a wanted man and he heads to Prescott, in Arizona, to start a new life. However, the powerful Jules Mourret (George Macready), who apparently is a businessman but actually is the leader of a gang of thieves, knows his past and forges documents with a fake identity to give a job in the local Conroy Stage and Freighter Line. Mourret is unsuccessful trying to steal the money and gold transported by the company but is frequently lured by Jason Conroy (Pierre Watkin); he intends to use Travis to get inside information about the transportation of gold. When one of Mourret's men kills the driver of the wagon, Travis schemes a plan to get rid of the gang.

"The Stranger Wore a Gun" is only an average Western and is disappointing considering the names of Randolph Scott, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in the cast. The story is weird and the motives of the ambiguous character performed by Randolph Scott are absolutely confused, but in the end this movie entertains. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Pistoleiro" ("The Gunman")

Fresh from his work on 'House of Wax' Andre De Toth was assigned another 3D project by Columbia in the form of this Randolph Scott western with rather Gothic-looking interiors in which De Toth demonstrates a liking for shadows when not pushing objects at the audience. These include Lee Marvin, already teamed with Ernest Borgnine, with whom he soon made such an ugly pair of heavies in 'Bad Day at Black Rock' (the two of them vying with Alfonso Bedoya to see who can show the most teeth while grimacing).

There's hardly any romance this time round, Claire Trevor providing wry asides rather than fluttering her eyelashes.

I saw this movie in a naval base movie theatre, in, I think, 1956. It was the first thing I recall seeing Lee Marvin in. This guy just absolutely fascinated me. Randolph Scott had been a "Semi-hero" of mine in the late thirties and the forties. In this movie, he was so old, and so slow drawing his gun, that they had to speed up the film to make it look like he was drawing his gun fast. Lee, on the other hand didn't need any "camera" tricks to make him look fast. Lee Marvin, as he was dying from having been shot by this amazingly slow lawman (Randolph Scott), looked down at his two hands, as if to say, "Hands -- how could you have failed me". I thought, facetiously, "Boy oscar is written oll over that!" Really a neat scene. That began a continuing admiration for Lee Marvin,, who could do bad guys, good guys, good guy-bad guy (Cat Ballou), Comedy, Drama, Action, He was a craftsman, and a master at it.

There are quite a few surprises in this film. First of all, it keeps you guessing especially as regards Randolph Scott's character, whose motivation is difficult to discern. It's hard to tell if he's a bad guy or a good guy sometimes, as he manipulates two different gangs of unsavory characters. This does not anticipate Yojimbo or A Fisftful of Dollars. Both of those films, plus this film, all derive somewhat from The Glass Key, which was filmed twice before The Stranger Wore A Gun was released in 1953. (In 1935 with George Raft and 1942 with Alan Ladd.)Those films were based on Dashiell Hammett's novel of 1931. In any case, this film has its own tale to tell, and the performances of Scott, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine are solid. The film suffers somewhat from the 3-D effects which are kind of lame in the 2-D format we have to suffer on our TV sets. People who don't remember the 3-D craze will probably think the director was weird. All in all, the film's offbeat style and great ensemble cast make this well worth watching a time or two. It is by no means an ordinary run-of-the-mill Western.

Having been shot in 3-D, expect a lot of guns to be pointed at you and sometimes shot, fire coming at the camera, and even rock formations in Lone Pine to appear to have shelves. Outside of this minor distraction, the story is a good one concerning the aftermath of Quantrill's Raiders involving one of his spies, Jeff Travis (Randy Scott), who is determined to run away from his past and begin a new life. Following a fracas on a riverboat, he ends up in Prescott, Arizona, just as the capital of the territory is being moved to Phoenix because of the lack of law and order in the town. Somewhat of a mentor to him as well as lover is the soiled dove Josie Sullivan, played knowingly by Claire Trevor. He rides into Prescott loaded for bear, hence the title "The Stranger Wore a Gun." That he can't shake his past even in an out of the way western hamlet becomes obvious when both Josie and Jules Mourret (George Macready), another ghost from yesterday, turn up there. It's not quite clear where the stranger is heading until a close pal is murdered by Jules' henchmen. To muddy the water a damsel in distress appears, pretty Shelby Conroy (Joan Weldon), who seems shy and innocent. The stranger begins falling in love with her to the displeasure of Josie. Newcomer Jules is holding a Mexican gang at bay led by the colorful Degas (Alfonso Bedoya). The stranger begins playing one gang against the other to almost be gunned down in the crossfire.

Two of Jules' henchmen would go on to win Academy Awards a few years later, Lee Marvin as Dan Kurth and Ernest Borgnine as Bull Slager. Borgnine wears one of the loudest cowboy outfits ever, including a green shirt. He looks like a dude from the east. This doesn't stop him from being the sadistic bully he usually played in those days. Marvin too is his usual twisted demented character fans loved to hate. To see these two in action is worth the price of admission.

Postscript: Look for Tap Canutt, son of famous stunt man Yakima Canutt, in a bit part. He was also one of the stunt men for the film.