Domino Kid

Veteran cowboy director Ray Nazarro came up with a winner with this fast-moving little oater. Just goes to show what a good script can do with a less than sterling budget. Rory Calhoun plays the title role, a war veteran returning west to avenge his murdered father (there were five of 'em, but who was the *fifth* man?). A series of successful shoot-outs bring Rory to the final showdown, not only with adversaries Andrew Duggan and Peter Witney, but with his own sense of justice and revenge. Helping him along are Kristine Miller and Robert Burton (who, like in just about every other minor western of the 1950's, plays the honest sheriff). A good performance by Eugene Inglesias as Domino's boyhood friend adds to the just-north-of-the-border ambiance of this comptetent film. An all-around enjoyable treat!

The Domino Kid is directed by Ray Nazarro and written by Kenneth Gammet and Hal Biller. It stars Rory Calhoun, Kristine Miller, Andrew Duggan, Yvette Dugay, Peter Whitney and Eugene Iglesias. Music is by Mischa Bakaleinikoff and cinematography by Irving Lipman.

Rory Calhoun is The Domino Kid (AKA: Cort Garand), who upon returning from his service in the Civil War sets out for vengeance against the five renegades who murdered his father. He quickly locates four of them, but the fifth man is proving illusive.

The script is a bit hoary, the formula unchallenging, and the very grand final shoot-out is as full of implausibilities as can be, but there's a good suspense quotient to this Oater that is most engaging. It also looks gorgeous, with the crisp black and white photography putting a tonally correct moody vibe on the story. Calhoun is a bastion of cool and hardness, quick on the draw and lobbing dominoes around to announce to his prey that they are up against a bad mutha. The requisite entanglements with cattle baron villain Wade Harrington (Duggan) and affairs of the heart are driven straight and simple, and the "twist" isn't really all that, yet this is well worth a look for Calhoun and B Western supporters. 7/10

If you're a die-hard Westerns fan (which I am), you'll manage to get through this one -- but you'll hate yourself in the morning.

Rory Calhoun spends a few weeks tracking down his father's killers, taking a bullet in the shoulder during one shoot out, until he finally goes back to his old homestead to settle down with his gorgeous former sweetheart.

And he never changes clothes once through the whole film. The bullet hole in his favorite shirt heals up as fast as his chest wound. Nice trick, huh?

Hokey dialog flies thicker than the bullets, and Calhoun is as wooden as a hitching post. If you make it to the final shoot out, you'll get to watch the worst shots in the West manage to miss each other so often they run out of bullets.

Calhoun finally takes a few slugs, but he still manages to crawl -- yes, crawl -- across an open street, straight toward the bad guy, who misses him repeatedly with a RIFLE from twenty feet away!

When Calhoun's sweetheart and the town doc (sci-fi veteran Thomas Brown Henry in his smallest role), examines the wounded Calhoun, he says, "He'll be alright as soon as I get all those holes plugged up."

What a man! What a movie . . .

Good little western from Columbia pictures made in the late fifties and not produced by the awful Sam Katzman. It is rather predictable concerning the ending, but the supense is all long the film, because of the hidden identity of the fifth killer of Rory Calhoun's father. That's pretty exciting for a western where the villains are usually known in advance. That reminds me a bit FIVE CARDS STUD but here at a lesser scale, and not because of the cast. It remains a B movie, only seventy one minutes, but really worth with a Rory Calhoun in great shape and it's always a pleasure to see Roy Barcroft, even in a small supporting character. For the rest, the revenge scheme is as new as the western genre itself.

Ray Navarro ain't exactly my idea of an average director, let alone a great one, but he does a decent job of making DOMINO KID interesting. The screenplay keeps suggesting Duggan is the fifth man but the latter is someone we hadn't seen before and I ain't spoiling the suspense for anybody else.

Calhoun retains his B Western solidity, Duggan credibly plays the bad fellow in hiding but when the moment comes, his heart is in the right place. How I wish all the baddies were ultimately this kind-hearted in real life (oh Utopia, thou failst me!)

Miller is a sweetie pie, a scumptious cookie to look at.

Good photography for a B flick. I liked it! 7/10.