Les renégats du Wyoming

This unassuming western tale from 1954 concerns an ex-con who once rode the outlaw trail with Butch Cassidy & the Wild Bunch. Blamed for a new series of crimes, Phil Carey must fight to clear his name and put an end to Cassidy's rash of robberies.

Phil Carey has had a long career, starting out in program Westerns after WWII. He is very good in this one, but the script is not especially believable--- sometimes seeming a little too predictable. Veteran character actor Gene Evans hams it up as a greedy Butch Cassidy.

This film is routine, with little to recommend it. The casting was interesting, but the finished film fails to blaze any new trails about the legend of Butch Cassidy.

Brady Sutton, a former member of Butch Cassidy's gang, wants to go straight after spending three years in prison. He returns to his home to get married and start a blacksmith business, and all is well until Cassidy's gang comes into town and robs the bank. Accused of conspiring with Cassidy, Sutton escapes, knowing the only way to redeem his name with the townspeople and his future bride is by taking Cassidy down.

Phil Carey was an underrated actor, who starred in a slew of westerns such as Gun Fury - he was villain in that one, and in this one he is a hero, well an ex-convict gone straight and is ready to settle down, but ends up running with the Hole in the wall gang again, albeit with the sole intention to stop them.

Wyoming Renegades is a nifty action western littered with historic baddies and a very strong plot that twists and turns like a well oiled machine. It's very enjoyable - individual personalities of the gang come to the fore. Gene Evans is one mean hombre as Cassidy and William Bishop is equally slimy as Sundance kid. No bicycles, or someone singing about raindrops falling on their head - just pure colourful action. It concludes with a surprising ending.

Aside from an early appearance onscreen of Butch & Sundance with the former as a straightforward heavy, and a rousing punch-up at the conclusion in which the women demonstrate whose got the biggest balls.

It also provides a look at Aaron Spelling during his brief career as an actor. On the strength of this he'd have made a worthy successor to Dwight Frye had he not soon moved behind the camera.

If you're thinking you'll be getting those lovable rogues from Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid in Wyoming Renegades you'd be dead wrong. This Hole In The Wall gang features a mean, but very crafty Butch Cassidy in Gene Evans and a charming, but deadly Sundance Kid in William Bishop.

I will say that Evans and Bishop don't end up in Bolivia but they do come to justice in Wyoming Renegades. And it's all because they won't let gang member Philip Carey just go his own way.

Carey returns to his home town and just wants to open the family blacksmith business again after his stretch in prison. But except for the girl he left behind Martha Hyer and a stranger in town Douglas Kennedy no one wants him. When Evans and Bishop try to pull a holdup of the bank then they really don't want him.

Without name stars this western has a nice ring of authenticity even though the plot is totally made up. I liked how Gene Evans played Cassidy, he's one crafty villain and nobody's fool.

As for how he's gotten, all I'll say is there was one person that Evans never figured on for outsmarting him.

Of course, from such a lame director Fred Sears, we could not expect to obtain here a good quality western, some kind of a Joseph Lewis or Budd Boetticher's western; I mean low budget but sharply done. Here, nothing of the kind, but it remains bearable, with the help of Phil Carey, his charisma, his presence. Good action scenes and the best to say and summarize is that this Columbia production is not monitorized by the infamous Sam Katzman, who would have given us something very worst. Just check several Fred Sears's films, produced by Sam Katzman. It remains worth the watch for western buffs.