Le trésor du pendu

Jake Wade (Robert Taylor) breaks his partner Clint Hollister (Richard Widmark) out of jail. Jake had buried their loot and refuses to reveal the location to Clint. Jake is actually the new Marshall of another small town married to wife Peggy (Patricia Owens). Clint and his new crew catch up to Jake, and he wants the loot.

It's a good if not great western. Robert Taylor is on the decline and he's a diminishing leading man. This one is all Richard Widmark. He is chewing up the movie the whole way through. He has all the swagger in the world. This has a fight with Indians. There is final shootout between the two leads in an abandoned town. It's all here.

Seems to me Widmark's character would have been money ahead to simply knock off another bank rather than go into injun country where the chances of dying were pretty high. However, this probably wouldn't have made any better of a film. Plenty of shooting, flying arrows, nasty killers, and as usual Widmark gives a stellar performance as a psychotic gunman intent on having his way no matter what.

Robert Taylor stars as Jake Wade, former outlaw gone straight who must battle his old partner, Richard Widmark as Clint Holister, the leader of a band of outlaws wanting to find stolen bank money, the location of which only Jake Wade knows. Robert Taylor does a competent job in the lead, but Richard Widmark really steals the show as the menacing leader of the gang. The movie is exciting, fast paced and leads to a satisfying climax. Good solid western.

Reformed marshal helps former cohort escape from prison, but comes to regret it. Taylor is fine as the stoic marshal trying to escape his outlaw past. Widmark makes a terrific villain, without resorting to the giggling psycho persona that marked many of his earlier performances as bad guys. He even has some funny lines. The enigmatic Silva is notable as a member of Widmark's gang. Sturges made a number of Westerns during the 1950s. This is another solid entry in the director's Western filmography, although it's not as good as the one that preceded it (Gunfight at the O.K. Corral) or the one that followed it (Last Train from Gun Hill).

Some of the best westerns of the Fifties and Sixties were directed by director John Sturges. Sturges's films combined that rare blend of action for the kiddies with adult problems and issues.

Here the problem is a debt owed or at least that's what Marshal Jake Wade feels towards Clint Hollister. Before Jake broke with the Hollister, it seems that Hollister saved him from a hangman's noose back when he ran with Hollister's gang. Jake hears about Hollister being arrested and sentenced to be hanged so he rides a piece and breaks him from jail.

That squares it as far as the Marshal is concerned, but the outlaw leader has other ideas. Seems Jake ran off with the proceeds from the last job. No good deed goes unpunished in this life. Hollister re-unites with his gang and they kidnap the Marshal and his fiancée and force him to lead them to the money.

You have to watch the film for the rest of this. If you're any kind of a fan of westerns, I think you'll know how this turns out.

Robert Taylor plays the upright Marshal Jake Wade who could have let the whole thing slide and let outlaw Richard Widmark hang, but he feels a debt. It's a good part for Taylor as he was winding down his contract at MGM. Unfortunately Taylor doesn't figure that Widmark owed him something for running off with the loot. The two leads play well off each other.

Rounding out the cast is Patricia Owens who is your typical crinoline western woman and the rest of Widmark's gang which included DeForest Kelley, Robert Middleton, and Henry Silva among others.

Nice Saturday afternoon fare for all fans of the American western, like me.