O Mensageiro da Morte

An uncompromising marshal known as 'the Hangman' (Robert Taylor) rides into a town to apprehend a suspect (Jack Lord), but needs a witness to identify him and so enlists a struggling young woman (Tina Louise). Fess Parker plays the sheriff of the town.

While "The Hangman" (1959) is a town-bound Western and hindered by the flat B&W photography, the story is good, which is the most important part. You get to know the characters and the film leaves you with a good feeling.

Tina Louise was only 23 during shooting (almost 24) and looks great, not to mention a convincing actress. Five or six years later she would start her 3-year run in Gilligan's Island. Shirley Harmer is also notable on the feminine front as Kitty, the wife of Johnny Bishop.

If you like Robert Taylor, be sure to check him out in the eponymous role of "The Law and Jake Wade" (1958), a standout 50's Western.

The movie is short & sweet at 1 hour, 26 minutes, and was shot at Old Tucson, Arizona, and Paramount Studios & Ranch, California.

GRADE: B/B-

This one has a flawlessly-written script by Dudley Nichols, the screenwriter of many well-known movies from 1930 to 1960 such as "Stagecoach" "The Bells of St. Mary's" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls". There's often a good moral lesson to be learned from a screenplay written by Nichols. The original story was by Luke Short, the author of many Western novels.

The cast is very good too with Robert Taylor as the "Hangman" Deputy Marshall, and several people who would later become familiar TV stars: Tina Louise, Jack Lord, Fess Parker and briefly, Lorne Green. And of course you can't go wrong with the direction of the great Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca") who, like Nichols, was nearing the end of his career.

I especially liked the story, it's deeper than most westerns, as it explores the themes of justice, loyalty, and forgiveness.

This is a superb scenario for this western in the city where a Marshall (Robert Taylor), looking for a wanted man (who risks being hanged if he is found guilty), is confronted with the fact that he is appreciated by everyone in the city. To identify him, he uses an acquaintance, Tina Louise, who will be able to identify him. This one, Jack Lord, turns out to be a good guy that everyone loves. Our Marshall finds himself alone against the others who will passively help their friend to escape.

The richness of the scenario is in the interaction of the different characters. Between Robert Taylor, the professional who doesn't care about the person he is looking for, because he is just wanted to be judged (he is not a jury or a judge) and the other characters: Tina Louise, the witness who is supposed to identify him; the sheriff Fess Parker, who helps the Marshall by profession. All three will evolve during the course of the story and change or adapt their position and posture. The sheriff will help the Marshall at first, then not so much later. The sheriff falls in love with Tina Louise (there is reason to). The Marshall ends up saying that doing this is not necessarily something he is excited about and will change his position, perhaps to the point of resigning.

To these four main characters are added secondary characters, well existing and well written and that enrich the story: the mature lady who tries to seduce Robert Taylor; the colleague of Jack Lord who fights with him, for example.

Note a beautiful scene where Tina Louise gets out of her bath and goes to her room to get dressed, with Robert Taylor present in the room. A scene both visually rich and rich in dialogue.

Until the conclusion, not necessarily unexpected, but very nice. This is a good story, timeless, which could be adapted in an infinite number of contexts, and therefore remade.

This is sort of a crossroads film where some on the way up (Lord, Parker, Louise) cross paths with a Taylor whose career is winding down. As a western, it's not your usual "shoot 'em up."

Marshall Taylor, a man on a mission, arrives in town to arrest a murder suspect. The only problem is he doesn't know this man's identity. Enter Ms. Louise as the answer to his problem. Dangling a $500 reward for her identification of the suspected killer, he figures his problems are over. Only issue? They are just starting. With local sheriff Fess Parker and wanted man Jack Lord plus some other familiar faces in supporting roles, The Hangman is much more about dialog and character study than action. The ending was a bit awkward but the journey there an OK ride.

For me, the most interesting element of this film was Ms. Louise. I'd only seen her previously as the breathless Ginger Grant, trapped forever (or it seemed that way) on Gilligan's Island. She is definitely a head-turner in this, her third movie, and does a fine job as a somewhat down on one's luck widow who sees more to Taylor than he sees in himself. One never knows why some actors move up the food chain while others sort of stall out. Between this release and Gilligan's Island were a bunch of Italian movies and some rather nondescript US B-films so maybe getting type cast as Ginger wasn't as career crippling as one might presume. Personally, I'd love to know if her trajectory might have changed if she had avoided the Italian phase and been cast in some mid-level US films instead. She certainly didn't embarrass herself in The Hangman and while we might have had to do without Ginger, I'd like to have seen how she fared in more substantial roles.

Plus points were Robert Taylor, the before-they-were-famous appearances of several of the cast, and a reasonably fresh plot. (By 1959 virtually every conventional Western theme had been over-repeated.)

But there were several flaws in how the producers depicted the Selah Jennison character, not least the exaggerated head-turning sequences after she'd bought some new clothes. Shortly after her sensational parade through town, she goes skinny-dipping (not uncommon in Westerns) and makes a point of attracting Mackenzie Bovard's attention. Perhaps I could look at the film again to make a particular note of how her attitude to the deputy marshal changed, fluctuated even.

Grilled cell windows facing onto an alleyway feature in many Westerns, but it was only when I was watching "The Hangman" that I realised what a security risk many of these would have been. So wide-spaced were the bars that a hand gun - or even something larger - could have been passed through them to the prisoner.

As others have remarked, the last couple of minutes of the film provided an ending that was none too satisfactory.