No Rastro dos Bandoleiros

"Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend" is a 1957 Randolph Scott Western that is plain terrible. There is no real shoot out in this movie, just a movie with a disjointed script and a bunch of actors playing their parts like moving statues. Scott had made a bunch of Westerns at Warner Bros. in the early 1950s, usually with Andre DeToth or Edwin Marin as the director and usually in Technicolor. "Shoot-Out" has centenarian director Richard Bare (100 years one week ago, August 12, 2013, a belated Happy Birthday) and Bare directs this movie like it was a long episode of a TV series. Filmed in black and white, not expensive Technicolor.

A major plot element of this movie involves Scott and his Army buddies pretending to be Quakers to work undercover to find out who sold Scott's brother bad rifle ammunition. I wonder if the writer saw the movie "Friendly Persuasion" in 1956. Another plot element is that the town of Medicine Bend is isolated from everywhere, so the crook who runs the town can rob wagon trains passing through, travelers like Scott and anyone else with total impunity. There are no marshals, no lawmen in other towns and no newspapers printing stories about these robberies.

Beautiful Angie Dickinson plays the daughter of a general store owner. She goes through the motions but she doesn't have that angry look you see sometimes on Randolph Scott's face, as if he is wondering what he is doing in this cheap movie directed by an incompetent. I am pretty sure Scott fired his agent after Scott starred in this movie. James Craig plays the villain in this movie, a businessman who owns almost every business in Medicine Bend. Craig's movie career had tanked by the time he made "Shoot-Out," a long way from Craig's starring role in 1942's "The Devil And Daniel Webster." The abrupt way Craig pops in and out of the movie makes me think that all of his scenes were shot bunched together, so Warner Bros. could pay him for the least amount of weeks' wages possible. That cheapness would explain this movie being shot in black and white, less chance of lab problems requiring reshoots after Craig finished all his scenes. In the 1950s, studio boss Jack Warner had reached the zenith of his cheapness. Every dollar not spent by Warner on this movie shows up on the screen.

Something else I really did not like about this Western is that while through most of the movie, the criminals restricted themselves to robbery, at the end, they are busy planning murders. One possible reason for the change could be the way Scott's character killed one of the gang. Scott never made another movie for Warner Bros. after this picture and I can understand why. As I have written before, "Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend" is a very bad movie.

If you like comedy then this film is for you ... gordon jones does his worst to ensure this will flop ... the only good part in this unwestern is angie dickinson ... a bit of color might have helped but the script is pretty weak ... i still want to know why scott is charged with murder when no one was killed

With a title like "Shoot-out at Medicine Bend" you know exactly what you're going to get. This is a thoroughly likable B-Western with Randolph Scott, a young James Garner and Gordon Jones as ex-army buddies trying to find out who robbed them, (when they were doing a bit of skinny-dipping), aka the goodies and James Craig, Myron Healey, John Alderson and sundry others as the baddies. There isn't really much plot; it's really just the good guys vs the bad guys and that's it but it's exciting and quite funny. The females involved are a young Angie Dickinson, cast here as the 'nice' girl and Dani Crayne, the saloon singer. Richard L Bare is the director and he doesn't waste a single shot.

The summary on IMDb for the film is actually wrong. There is no cavalry unit that is massacred by Sioux Indians. Instead, the real plot is as follows: Three men muster out of the US Cavalry (Randolph Scott, James Garner and Gordon Jones). When they come to the home of Scott's brother, they find that the Indians are attacking. Because the men defending the ranch (all civilians) had bought defective bullets, Scott's brother is killed. So, Scott and his two ex-cavalry buddies are on their way to Medicine Bend to find out more about the general store that sold the lousy bullets (the bullets were so bad, the powder in some of the shells wouldn't even burn).

On the way their, the men take a swim in a pond--during which time, their horses, money and clothes are stolen! Soon, they get more clothes from a group of nice religious folk (who Scott refers to as "Brethren" and "the Brotherhood") and learn that this group had just been robbed by men posing as Cavalry men--they'd obviously been using the three men's clothes. So, once they get clothes from these Brethren they head to town--dressed in garments that make them look like non-violent religious men.

Once in the town, they discover that there is cliché #4 from westerns--a local rich guy who controls the sheriff and exploits the people. So it's obvious they won't get any help from the law and need to investigate themselves. At the general store, they soon see that they are selling crappy merchandise AND men working for Craig are going to competing stores and terrorizing them. It's obvious that Craig is behind everything, but how to catch him and prove this might be difficult.

Considering that this is a Randolph Scott western, it isn't surprising what follows. However, like almost all of his films of the era, the journey towards this predetermined end is quite pleasant. I am not a huge fan of the genre, but enjoy Scott's films because they often aren't filled with the usual clichés or, when the are, the acting is so seemingly effortless that the films STILL rise above the rest in the genre.

By the way, pay close attention to see a very young Angie Dickenson. It's a bit easy to miss her in her role working for the nice store--she's got long brown hair and it really makes her look very different. Frankly, I liked her this way but apparently the blonde look served her well in later projects, so who am I to say!

In Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend Randolph Scott is cast as a recently mustered out army captain who arrives just in time to atop an Indian raid, but too late to save his brother.

As he sees it the Indians were just doing their thing, but he wants to find out who sold his brother and the other settlers of the community they're building the defective ammunition that left them helpless. The trail leads Scott and his two sidekicks James Garner and Gordon Jones to the town of Medicine Bend.

If ever a town needed a better business bureau it was Medicine Bend. The place is run by James Craig, Myron Healey, and assorted thugs they've hired. They have Mayor Don Beddoe and Sheriff Trevor Bardette intimidated. Usually villains like Craig are usually running a crooked saloon and he does that as well. But Craig has all kinds of interests and he undersells the other merchants with shoddy quality merchandise like the defective ammunition he sold Scott's brother. Honest people like Harry Harvey and daughter Angie Dickinson are being driven out of business through his cut rate 'bargains' and intimidation.

The title lives up to its name, there is a dandy shootout. I liked the film for the fact it has an unusual villain in the form of a merchant. Unusual for westerns that is. Craig's practices are rather up to date when you think about it.

For some reason this film is not out. That's a pity because it's not the greatest of Randolph Scott westerns, but pretty good.