Le cavalier fantôme

Borrowing from his portrayal of Old Man Clanton in My Darling Clementine, Walter Brennan dominates this film as the mean and merciless head of an outlaw family. It seems that Brennan at one time was the local Ben Cartwright, but little by little the homesteaders and small ranches have nibbled him down to little by his standards. So he and his two outlaw sons Jim Davis and Jack Lambert have been plying the outlaw trade going after them with some cattle rustling and other forms of criminal enterprise.

The general outlaw situation has a lot of people mighty of suspicious of sheriff Forrest Tucker and deputy Guinn Williams. Federal Marshal Jack Holt arrives on the scene, but he's wounded in a stagecoach holdup and not able to do too much.

Into all this mix is a mysterious loner played by Rod Cameron who looks like he's trying to cut himself in on everybody's action, Brennan's and Tucker's. When you're not watching Brennan, Cameron's the one that should be paid attention.

Brennan had a very bad time with John Ford when he made My Darling Clementine, but Ford got a great performance from him. I think Brennan channeled a lot of that into his role here of Brimstone Courteen.

This is a great action western from Republic with quite a bit more plot to it than the usual Republic product for the Saturday afternoon kid market. And you'll not forget Walter Brennan in the title role.

This Republic Pictures western is at least a real western, and not a cabaret, music hall, burlesque revue movie - called western because it took place in the late 1870's - for which Republic studios were the specialists of. It is an action packed movie, also offering Walter Brennan, as good and convincing as usual, and also Jim Davis, before he became notorious as one of the DALLAS series Ewing leader. Yes, I like this Joseph Kane's western he who was the main western provider for Republic Pictures. The Trucolor helps a lot to appreciate the film and the story holds you all long the story. So, for those among you who are used to the Republic westerns, this one is good, yes, but offers nothing special, with Rod Cameron and Forrest Tucker, as in a John Ford's western, Ward Bond and John Wayne.

This one would have gone over well with the under 12 crowd, many years ago. For you young folk, once upon a time movie theaters had matinees for kids every Saturday morning. Starting times varied - ours started at 10:00 am, and consisted of some cartoons, a serial, maybe a comedy short, and then a (fair-to-middling) western feature film. "Brimstone" would have filled the bill for one of these, and if I were 11 I would have rated it higher.

"Brimstone" is a typical two-dimensional western devoid of rational thought and motivation, the type produced by the carload by Poverty Row studios in the 40's. It has lots of action, with fistfights and shoot-outs and hombres talking tough. This one has stalwart Rod Cameron as a US Marshal trying to apprehend some stage robbers, in fact a family of them. The family is headed by Walter Brennan in iron-fisted fashion as a cantankerous old rancher, and he makes the most out of his chance to carry a movie. He is like Moe and his sons like the other Stooges, aided by some unintentionally funny dialogue and knockabout comedy, as the British would say. (Of course,this is supposed to be deadly serious stuff).

There are the usual plot dead ends and unresolved loose ends which I always find annoying, but at the age of 11, who would notice? There is enough action to fire up the young audience, and cause the matron to descend on us and order all concerned to be quiet, flashlight in hand.

*Stagecoach* used to be my favorite Western, but *Brimstone* may supplant it. Brimstone has no intellectual pretensions, but it's a perfect distillation of all cowboy movies. Every line is a great cliche.

This is one of the B Western films that has everything, great stars, great plot, surprises, good guys, bad guys, etc.

Brennen does an excellent job as Brimstone, a grizley old man that is bad to the bone and expects his moron sons to be just as bad. The exception being James Brown.

Rod Cameron plays a great part but in my opinion, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams steals the show.

"Gracious, I always talk Spanish when I'm eatin', makes the food taste better"

Watch it, tape it and watch it again. You'll always find some hidden part or line that'll connect for you.