Sa dernière chevauchée

If you love Westerns, you'll love The Last Posse. I had never heard of it before TCM tossed it into their Broderick Crawford Day of movies. Great cast too! Not only Crawford but Henry Hull, Charles Bickford as well as Harry Hayden, an always uncredited character actor who I've come to notice. Much of the film takes place in the desert among some absolutely remarkable rock formations as the backdrop. Anyway, all Western Lovers should have this one on their list. I thought I'd seen just about every Western at least once so this really came as a wonderful surprise. Watch for it and enjoy! At less than 90 minutes long, it doesn't wear out its welcome like this overlong review! Unfortunately the IMDb insists on ten lines whether or not you have something to say. OK, it finally says I wrote enough lines!

The Last Posse is directed by Alfred L. Werker and co-written by Seymour Bennett, Connie Bennett and Kenneth Gamet. It stars Broderick Crawford, Charles Bickford, John Derek and Wanda Hendrix. Primary location used for the shoot is Lone Pine, Alabama Hills, California, with Burnett Guffey on photography duties. Out of Columbia Pictures, story tells of how a returning posse on the trail of outlaw robbers, return to Roswell, New Mexico, minus their leader and with their accompanying sheriff critically wounded.

Much better than its B movie origins, The Last Posse is strong in characterisations, visually smart and being structured as it is, primarily in flashback, also getting a bit of unusual intrigue tossed into the Oatmeal. It's also very well acted, with Crawford and Bickford making for a nice gruff opposing pair, and the support cast is filled with solid performers like Henry Hull, Warner Anderson and Skip Homeier. Director Werker (He Walked By Night) does a good job of keeping the story nicely paced, dotting the plot with some well staged action along the way, and the finale, thankfully not telegraphed, doesn't disappoint at all. But in the main it's the writing and Guffey's photography that lifts it above average. The various members of the posse are either troubled or driven by motive, making for a good psychological mix, and this in turn is well realised by Guffey's crisp black and white photography of the Lone Pine, Alabama Hills landscapes. The numerous boulders and odd shaped rocks impose on the characters and the desert flats make a grim stage for the unfolding story.

Easily recommended to the Western movie fan. 7/10

It's noirish credentials burnished by being framed within a flashback. This tough little western short on action but long on moody menace is shot by Burnett Guffey so that it in places even resembles a silent film. The climax takes against a backdrop of oppressively sun-bleached rockland and it has a neat ending.

Broderick Crawford gives one of his usual solid performances playing a worn-out alcoholic sheriff struggling through life. The storyline keeps the viewer interested and the chase through New Mexico takes us into great scenery. The actions scenes aren't particularly convincing though but the film does good service to the Western genre by clearly defining the Bad guys from the Good guys. Very watchable.

Yes folks, this superb little western - posse western, a genre within the genre - is produced by the same man who will work several years later with Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott on the same kind of stuff. Short, small budgets but so great ideas, with nothing really expected, nothing predictable and pulled by strong performances, and the whole without any f...heroes; only terrific characterd=s study. Look for instance Broderick Crawford in one of his best roles, an aging sheriff, his most poignant, terrific ones. And with this western, director Alfred Werker, proves once more - before DEVIL'S CANYON, THREE HOURS TO KILL, CANYON CROSSROADS, AT GUNPOINT, REBEL IN TOWN - that he was nearly at the level of a Budd Boetticher in terms of budget-quality ratio.