Chevauchées avec le diable

Murf plays a man intent on revenging the murder of his kin. To give the appearance of helping him he is deputized by a renegade sheriff and sent off on a mission sure to cause his death at the hands of psychotic killer Whitey Kincaid. When things don't go as the lawman planned he and his henchmen must try other measures to get the pesky little rascal off their scent or be found out as the very ones Murf is seeking. Average western with Duryea giving quite a performance as the always jolly, backshooting scumbag Kincaid.

Ride Clear of Diablo is directed by Jesse Hibbs and adapted to screenplay by George Zuckerman from a story by Ellis Marcus. It stars Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea, Susan Cabot, Abbe Lane and Russell Johnson. Irving Glassberg is the cinematographer with location filming in Technicolor at Lone Pine and Victorville in California. Plot sees Murphy as Clay O'Mara, a railroad surveyor forced to return to his home town after rustlers kill his father and brother. Getting the sheriff to make him a tin star wearing deputy, Murphy sets about finding out who was responsible for the murders. His first port of call is a meeting with notorious gunslinger Whitey Kincaid (Duryea)...

Lively and utterly enjoyable "B" Western in the cannon of Audie Murphy. Standard revenge formula of plotting is elevated to better heights by the central relationship between Murphy's honest do gooder and Duryea's rough and tumble bad dude. Director Hibbs smoothly directs and the story has one or two surprises to off set the expected lack of credibility in the story. Glassberg's photography is beautiful and there's good support to the leads from Jack Elam and Denver Pyle. The girls look sexy and are costumed in style, while the action sequences, notably a horse pursuit featuring a gorgeous white stallion, are good value for money. Everything, though, is in Duryea's shadow, stealing the movie, Duryea is having a great time as the cackling villain forming an uneasy friendship with Murphy. It's this coupling, and the turn of events in the finale, that most will fondly remember the film for.

Real solid stuff. 7/10

Someone guns down Audie Murphy's father and brother and steals their cattle, so Audie pins on a badge and goes hunting Dan Duryea. After he brings in his man, giggling madman Duryea is cleared in court by corrupt lawmen Paul Birch and Russell Johnson. Duryea takes a shine to Murphy's naive honesty.

It's a well written western, and if Duryea dominates the movie, it's all offered pretty much in the wheelhouse of the leads. It's another of Universal's "shaky A" westerns, focusing more on character and story than the declining B westerns of the era. Jesse Hibbs, in his second time wielding the megaphone, does a good job, and seems to have established enough of a rapport with Murphy to direct half a dozen of his movies over the next four years. He was born in 1906. By the time he was 30, he was an assistant director, and was that on more than fifty films. With the decline of lesser productions, he shifted to directing TV westerns and episodes of THE FBI. He died in 1985.

A pretty routine Audie Murphy vehicle made infinitely watchable by Dan Duryea's colorful and totally against type performance as the notorious black clad outlaw Whitey Kincaid. A gem for Duryea fans.

This is probably one of my top 3-4 favorite Audie Murphy movies, and I've seen about 20 of them--or about 50% of what he made. Dan Duryea as Whitey Kinkaid is a very interesting and amusing character who plays nicely off Audie's very credible performance. Russell Johnson (later the Professor on Gilligan's Island) as Jed Ringer and the lawyer and sheriff have some great lines that offset the B picture sets. All in all, this is a highly watchable movie, along with another Murphy/Duryea team-up, "Six Black Horses." Duryea and Murphy appeared together again in Jimmy Stewart's "Night Passage," but I like Ride Clear of Diablo and Horses better. Would pay $500 to have Audie's full filmography on DVD.