Tension à Rock-City

Good western featuring a reticent gunslinger and a lawman who has lost his nerve who must go up against a group of thugs who want to let off steam in their town. Egan was well cast as the gunman who was short on talk and long on slinging lead when the chips were down.

This movie has all the ingredients most Western fans love in their films: gunfights, love triangles, bad guys & a quiet, suffering & misunderstood hero working out his private travails by helping a beleaguered sheriff deal with his own demons. All with a rousing Dimitri Tiomkin score that has a memorable ballad at its core. We've seen these ingredients before in many other Westerns but in this film they seem to work.

Richard Egan non-acting style work perfectly here & the supporting cast boasts small but vivid parts for Angie Dickenson as the siren that starts Egan's private struggle & Deforest Kelly as a smiling, friendly gunslinger. I've seen this film a number of times & surprisingly the film still works.

Frank Gruber's novel "Bitter Sage" becomes highly-engrossing western from R.K.O. Richard Egan (amusingly expressionless, and cutting a mighty figure in his cowboy garb) plays a gunslinger whose best friend turns on him, ending with the friend shot dead; hoping to escape his reputation as a coward, Egan's Wes Tancred first goes to stay with a lonesome rancher and his son (ending in a rather unfair violent episode), later winding up in a town under the fear-grip of a nasty bunch of rowdies who invade the territory every so often during their cattle drive. Combining several familiar scenarios (such as those for "High Noon" and "Shane"), the movie nevertheless gets quite a bit of sagebrush excitement pumping, with the viewer completely on Egan's side (if this film didn't break handsome Egan as a big Hollywood name, it should have). Billy Chapin (from "The Night of the Hunter") is excellent as the lad who takes a shine to Tancred, and Dorothy Malone is also good as a lonely sheriff's wife. Eddy Arnold hauntingly sings the theme song, which plays a major part in the proceedings. Predictable, perhaps, but it's a formula that works when it is done right, and here it is done right. *** from ****

Tension at Table Rock is directed by Charles Marquis Warren and is adapted to screenplay by Winston Miller from the novel "Bitter Sage" written by Frank Gruber. It stars Richard Egan, Dorothy Malone, Cameron Mitchell, Billy Chapin, Royal Dano, Edward Andrews and John Dehner. Music is by Dimitri Tiomkin and Technicolor cinematography is by Joseph Biroc.

Wes Tancred (Egan) is a weary gunslinger who is wandering the plains after having been accused of a cowardly killing. Assuming the name of John Bailey, he happens upon the "Bitter Sage" ranch and events there will lead him into the town of Table Rock. Where his future, perhaps damned by his past, will be determined.

A good Oater full of the staples of 50s genre pieces, tension at Table Rock is nonetheless a worthy morsel for those keen of a Western diet. Pic picks up a number of thematic threads, such as the gunman trying to go straight, a lawman who has lost his bottle, and hero worship by way of surrogacy. Naturally there's a romantic angle, with Malone all bright eyed and perched in between Egan and Mitchell, but this is thankfully not over played.

Standard action scenes are handled well by Warren, a man who knew his way around dusters of TV and cinema. Costuming and scenic photography is pleasing, while Egan (tortured square jawed machismo), Mitchell (tortured and scarred and awaiting machismo rebirth) and Dano (eleagant wise man) are in good credit with performances. Best of the support is Dehner, no surprise there, and Angie Dickinson and DeForest Kelly have minor but key roles to play.

It's all tightly played out to the point that the derivative nature of the story is in no way a hindrance to the entertainment on offer. 7/10

Tension At Table Rock casts Richard Egan as a misunderstood gunman who gets a phony reputation as a backshooting coward because he outdrew the wanted Paul Richards and Richard's girlfriend Angie Dickinson who was the only witness told a false tale.

Now having to operate under an assumed name, Egan falls in with orphan Billy Chapin after he eliminates those who killed Chapin's father Joe DeSantis and made him an orphan. He delivers young Billy to the town of Table Rock where his aunt and uncle live and uncle Cameron Mitchell is a much put upon sheriff.

After this the film does run along the established plot lines of Shane somewhat. Mitchell makes a Faustian bargain with trail boss John Dehner to not tear up the town too much mainly because he got beaten really badly by a whole bunch of Dehner's trailhands on the previous drive. But when one of them shoots down an unarmed farmer and then tries to get away with it Egan gets into action.

Dorothy Malone is in Tension At Table Rock as well. 1956 was the same year Malone got her career Oscar winning role for Written On The Wind. The sexual tension between the stranger Egan and her is unmistakable and it's where people draw comparisons between Tension At Table Rock and Shane.

Though she's on only briefly in the beginning Angie Dickinson really does shine in the part of a woman who gets vengeance for her man. Another really good performance is that of Edward Andrews the saloon owner who could care less if the drunken trailhands shoot up the town and kill a few people as long as they drink in his saloon and his profits don't get cut into.

Towards the end of that studio's existence RKO was getting into some serious adult B westerns as was its competitor Republic, the stuff that would later be a staple for fifties and sixties television. Tension At Table Rock is a good example of the adult type westerns that would later be found on television.