La valse des colts

Embarrassingly bad western. With its cheesy titles, generic booming theme music, cheap production values and childish dialogue, it seemed liked a poor made-for-TV movie. It also hurt that the two main "stars," good guy Tony Young and bad guy Dan Duryea, were ridiculous extreme opposites -- Young was wooden and expressionless, and Duryea was his usual comic over-the-top scenery-eater. And then much of the action was implausible.

One scene in the movie deserves comment -- I had never seen anything like it in a western (or anywhere for that matter). The Jo Morrow character is a sexy young blonde married to an old widower for his money. (She throws herself at Young the moment she sees him, but I digress.) She is a main character, and is in love with Duryea, and the two of them run off with the widower's money and cattle herd (and some wranglers). A not-too-large group of Indians approach them and demand that they be given the woman, Morrow. The bad guys do NOT attempt to fight the Indians, and after a lame protest, they actually hand Morrow over to the Indians. She protests to no avail, the Indian carries her off on his horse, she fights him as best she can, and then the Indian drops her on the ground and kills and scalps her! (I had thought that the Indian had a sexual interest in Morrow. Not sure, but it seems most likely that he wanted her for her blonde scalp!) We never see any Indians again in the movie. So one off-beat scene in a silly routine western!

When I saw the movie "He Rides Tall" on Encore Westerns, I immediately noted that his voice struck a chord in my memory. I am pretty good at recognizing voices of movie actors and people that I have met or listened to for many years. I still recognize the voice of Gabriel Heatter. When I found out Tony was in the Air Force, I felt that I had met him. Even his face became familiar. I just can't remember where I saw him, because I had been to so many places between 1951 and 1965. I served at Patrick AFB; K-14 Korea; Orlando AFB; Washington DC (twice); Hickam AFB, Hawaii; and Edwards AFB, CA. I have also lived in a lot of different places. I hope if someone sees this, they could give me some information on where we might have met.

Tony Young is on his last day as marshal when Carl Reindel comes into town with his father, crippled R. G. Armstrong's herd, argues with the stock buyer, fires Dan Duryea as foreman, and shoots a hand in his back who quits with the intention of telling Armstrong what's going on. Young tries to arrest him, but Reindel decides to shoot it out, and Young puts him down. Then he has to ride out to Armstrong's ranch with a draft for th money and the news that he has killed his foster father's son. His fiancee, Madlyn Rhue, thinks he'll be dead. Instead, Armstrong's young wife, Jo Morrow, makes a play for him. At Duryea's urging, Armstrong has doctor Joel Fluellen cripplle Young's hand, but while everyone thinks he has, Young is as good as ever; he just can't show it because that will get Fluellen in trouble.

Duryea is in prime psychopathic mode here, and with a stronger director, this might have been a fine little western with a nice subtext. However, neither the script nor director R. G. Springsteen seem to make the effort, and it's all about selfish people versus unselfish people, and hang any subtlety. If Young had any qualms, well, he had knocked around, had a short-lived TV oater, and guest appearances. This was his first lead, and so he was probably happy to do the work and get paid. At least the black&white cinematography by Ellis Carter is first-rate.

A rancher is pressured by his cheating wife and a gang leader, into trying to cripple a marshal's gun hand, after that marshal killed his murderous son in self defense.

He Rides Tall is a cut above many of the westerns released at time with some strong noirish drama at play. It has some good characterisation, quite compelling ones. Sure it's low-budget, and looks like a TV show, but it's well handled by Springsteen and Dan Duryea steals the scene as the villain and he's quite callous in his treatment of a cheating wife by passing her to the Indians. There's a well-staged shootout in a darkened room.

It's a decent western that keeps one watching, however a better lead actor would have made this western better. Tony Young is ok, but overall he lacks personality and looks like he's reading from a cue card. Shame Audie Murphy didn't star in this one. He probably would have if he hadn't made westerns for other studios during this time. In the opinion of producer Gordon Kay he felt if Murphy had stuck with Universal only he would have made westerns with them till '69. But Audie needed money to feed his gambling habit so he made westerns with Columbia/20th century Fox studios.

I guess this is not the most awful movie I have seen but very far from the best. There were parts I did enjoy and some where I was sitting do they really mean that?

The protagonist was borderline suicidal or just plain stupid. In the start of the movie the marshal/protagonist throws someone out from the saloon for wearing a gun in the saloon. The guy goes for his gun and the marshal have to shoot it away from him. Then he lets him go without throwing him a night in jail. Simply to good to survive.

Dan Duryea played well but even here there were some points where it got too far. Actually the Doctor was the only one of the major characters that made sense and he played well too.

So would I recommend this movie? Not really as the few action scenes were not really interesting and the story very thin. But if it on a channel near you and nothing better to do then it will not hurt you to watch it. But you can find many better westerns out there.