La corde est prête

This seems to be yet another telling of the Tom Horn saga. In this incarnation, Sam Hall(Horn?)waits in jail and torments the sheriff, as various citizen groups attempt to break him out, for various, and obvious reasons. The minstrel, wandering, singing, and updating the plot for the viewers, becomes very annoying. Features an interesting, if not great cast, but the plot drags.

This is the story of the most desperate gamble the west has ever known , dealing with a sheriff of Gunlock named Bill (John Agar) scheming on legally hanging a murderer called Sam Hall (Richard Boone) who shot three farmers found on cattle land , at sundown , and then he defied the law to hang him. As at the saloon , betting is 8 to 3 he won't make it . Bill is a tough ,reckless sheriff and with his own hands he put the rope around his neck . There is a strong confrontation between settlers and cattlemen all around the movie . Our two-fisted marshal has to contend with farmers who want to Lynch the prisoner , and cattlemen who want to help him escape . Shortly after, the farmers hope to lynch him before he can be rescued ; and Hall plans for getaway with his girlfriend Nellie (Coleen Gray) and along the way Bill is treacherously duped by his fianceé (Mamie Van Doren) . Sheriff Jorden is most concerned with finding out who hired Hall : there are several suspects , one of them results to be the sheriff's future brother-in-law called Ballard (Leif Erikson) . ¨Five minutes were all he needed , but five guns were betting the time would run out¨. "The Sun's setting for me. It'd be a shame to miss it" (original herald-all caps) .

Entertaining Western including action , thrills , fights , shot'em up and a peculiar love story between John Agar and the gorgeous Mamie Van Doren . The story is plain and simple , a strong confrontation with a twisted intrigue behind , as a sheriff faces off enemies alone and being abandoned to his fate by the gutless townspeople . An agreeable and slight tale , almost rudimentary , though full of cliches , as the script lines too often settle for crude routine ; however , packing some surprises . Bursting with appealing , charming characters, including decent filmmaking and interpretation . The final stand-off results to be tense , charged and riveting . It is a brilliant studio of a mob mentality in ¨Fred Zinneman's High Noon¨ -the Prototype for a Hundred Westerns- style with provoking individual characterizations , and paced in psychological tendry . As the desolation and bleakness of this town stands in contrast to the heroism starred by the brave sheriff who is betrayed by his girlfriend , too . The narration is perfectly adjusted , from the beginning , until the final showdown and being approximately developed in appropriate runtime : 80 min . John Agar makes a pretty good sheriff of Gunlock planning to hang a killer . Agar played a number of Westerns , some of them directed by John Ford as Fort Apache , She wore a yellow ribbon , and Along the great divide , Johnny Reno , Chisum , Undefeated , Cavalry command ; but he also performed other genres as Wartime : Hell raiders , Sands of Iwo Jima, and standing out in Sci-Fi/Terror genre , in fact he became a Science-Fiction icon , including titles as Tarantula , Revenge of the creature , The mole people , The brain from planet Arous , Attack of the puppet people , Curse of the swamp creature , Women of the prehistoric planet , Invisible invaders , Fear , Body Bags , The daugher of the Dr. Jekill , among others . There stands out a fine support cast , such as : Richard Boone as Sam Hall, Leif Erickson as a leading suspect , Coleen Gray as his sister , the elderly James Gleason , Randy Stuart , Stanley Andrews , Paul Fix and Henry Morgan .

Atmospheric musical score by Frank Skinner and note the continuing use of ballads by a minstrel along the streets with song ¨Sam Hall¨ written and performed by Terry Gilkyson as The Music Man . It packs a colorful and brilliant cinematography in Technicolor by John Russell , shot in Universal Studios ; Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California . Produced in middle-budget by Albert Zugsmith , here director Charles F. Haas managed to create a nice work of art with fine acting , appropriate scenarios from production designers Alexander Golitzen and Sweeney , and attractive plot . As he makes a picture really intriguing , not merely because Charles Haas 's tersely economic narration of his material , but because Universal Pictures made a decission to cut budget and reducing locations . Haas worked heavily for Universal, and was assigned to write and produce Moonrise (1948). He soon returned to making industrial films, then turned to television directing. He made his feature directorial debut in 1956, and turned out a string of low-budget westerns, gangster and juvenile-delinquent pictures - several with third-string Marilyn Monroe wannabe Mamie Van Doren - before returning to television. In the early 1950s he, along with such Hollywood notables as actor Robert Ryan and director John Sturges, founded the Oakwood School, a private academy in Los Angeles geared toward "progressive" education. As Charles Haas directed films of all kinds of genres such as : Screaming Eagles ,The Big Operator , Girls town , Showdown at Abilene , Wild Heritage, Summer Love , Platinum High School , The beat generation . And especially working in known TV series , such as : Perry Mason , Bonanza , Hawaiian Eye , 77 Sunset Strip , Broken arrow ,Man Without a Gun, Death Valley Days , Charlie Chan , Zane Grey , Route 66, Maverick , Caravan , The Mickey Mouse Club , Dick Tracy , among others . Rating : 6/10 . Acceptable and passable western. Well worth watching .

Star In The Dust is certainly an illusion to where Gary Cooper's sheriff's badge wound up at the end of High Noon. But John Agar's star never wound up there as he walks a fine line between homesteaders and cattlemen in this rather grim Universal western.

Hired killer for the cattlemen Richard Boone is scheduled to hang at sundown. But Agar's facing a real problem. The homesteaders just want to lynch him before the appointed hour because the cattlemen are fixing to break him out. Agar would also like to find out who exactly hired Boone to intimidate the homesteaders. He did more than intimidate, he's hanging because he killed three of them.

Head of the cattlemen is Leif Erickson and his sister Mamie Van Doren is supposed to marry Agar. Boone has a girlfriend also in Coleen Gray, a plain Jane sort who never got any attention until Boone. Now she's ready to do anything for her man.

Terry Gilkyson, country singer and songwriter sings The Ballad of Sam Hall which is Boone's character and serves as a kind of Greek chorus to the events.

Though Agar's star never winds up in the dust, the film is a decent enough B western, grim and violent.

After an awfully slow opening 30 minutes, 'Star in the Dust' does eventually turn into a decent western flick from 1956.

I really didn't enjoy that beginning chunk, which is severely meandering as it's filled with set-up and uninteresting characters. Thankfully things gradually improve, how much I'm not fully sure, to lead into an eventful, at least, finale.

I don't have much to note with the cast. John Agar stands out as you'd expect, while future Disney mainstay Harry Morgan is also involved. Clint Eastwood has a minor showing, a few words but nothing more.

Lastly, one thing I must note: there's a crazy piece of stuntwork towards the conclusion - I was genuinely shocked to see it. Bravo to whomever did it!

Star in the Dust is directed by Charles Haas and adapted to screenplay by Oscar Brodney from the novel "Law Man" written by Lee Leighton. It stars John Agar, Mamie Van Doren, Coleen Gray, Richard Boone, Leif Erickson, Harry Morgan, Randy Stuart and James Gleason. Music is by Frank Skinner (Joseph Gershenson supervising) and Technicolor cinematography is by John L. Russell Jr.

We are in the town of Gunlock and Sheriff Bill Jorden (Agar) is set to hang hired killer Sam Hall (Boone) at sunset. Only he finds himself in the middle of the Ranchers and Farmers because one lot want to help Hall escape, and the other want to lynch him post haste. With the exception of his two trusty deputies, Sheriff Jorden - already having to carry around the weight of not being as good as his dad was at the job - can't trust anyone and has it all to do to ensure things are done legal like.

It begins with a shot of a Sheriff's badge in the dust, and sure enough from that moment on the feeling of watching a poor High Noon/Rio Bravo knock off is hard to shake. Pic is erring towards psychological smarts with a half decent screenplay put forward by Brodney, and the cast can't be called for being poor since most are good enough when given enough screen time to work with. Though it has to be said that Agar is just a touch too wooden, overplaying his weary lawman act and it grows tiresome entering the last third of film.

Pacing is deadly slow, and as a number of characters are introduced along the way, there's barely any action to cling onto as a point of dramatic worth. There's a decent fist fight on show, and a wickedly enjoyable girl scrap, which even involves any weapons that are handy! A brilliant piece of stunt work in the finale is to be highly applauded, but other than that we are sort of plodding through to the end. Biggest crime comes in under using Boone as the villain, he's on in it for short moments at a time, and he's hardly given a biting script to spout.

The guitar based musical score is quite dreadful and irritatingly it's practically non stop when the story moves out of the jailhouse. I understand why the usually reliable Skinner was going for sombre tones in the play, but it's a dirge, and when the narrative perks up a notch, the guitar shifts into something that sounds like it belongs in animation Batman instead of a psychological Western. Bonus is the colour photography, lovely lenses from Russell and the TCM print is gorgeous. But again there's an irk, for the story rarely ventures out of the town so we are denied and sparkling Technicolor landscapes.

It does have fans, and it really isn't a bad Western as such, it's just not a good one either. It goes through the motions and wastes a good cast and potential for character dynamism. 5/10

Footnote: Clint Eastwood is in the mix for a walk on part, keep a look out for him.