Four Fast Guns

Grade C story, grade B+ direction, grade B- actors, grade C- acting, and grade B+ ending, so a grade C+ film.

I really stumbled across this "Western" film. I had clicked on a Charlie Chan film while searching through YouTube and Four Fast Guns popped up instead.

Edgar Buchanan had star billing. Yes, Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction and from over 150+ films and TV shows where he earned fame from being listed as uncredited or with characters named: Bartender Dan, Applejack, Uncle Willie, Old Willy, Dr. Samuels, Uncle Harry, and Will "Bill" Dowdy to name a few. So, when the credits began for Four Fast Guns and Buchanan was the star, I had to watch. Especially as Buchanan intoned the opening lines with "This man came along the trail one Sunday morning in '73, taking it slow and easy, keeping his eyes open and his gun hand ready. He came from nowhere, I guess. Anyhow, he never said from where and we never asked. He was going to stop off in Purgatory, to make his stand like he lived - alone. This is Number One. He called himself Sabin."

And then there was the action from the get go as Sabin is about to be gunned down by what is termed "a town tamer." After killing the man who would have murdered him, Sabin rides into the town of Purgatory where he is taken for the sent for town tamer.

The plot is typical in that there is a villain (monster) holding a town (castle) captive, and the townsfolk gather enough money to hire a fast gun (knight errant) to save them and free the villain's wife (damsel-in-distress).

For the most part it works. The director, William J. Hole Jr., makes the most of shooting in black and white, and he know how to "show" the audience by not showing them. But he doesn't know how to keep the story tight and focused. Most of the "starring" actors are recognizable-James Craig, Brett Halsey, Richard Martin, Paul Richards-but aren't names you know. Usually, they turn in a good performance, but here there is a feeling they could have all done better.

The ending is true to the film and could have been powerful and memorable but instead it comes off as mediocre. The final shot was worthy of a Clint Eastwood Western, but here it comes close to laughable.

With someone else at the helm, this might have had a chance to be a High Noon. Instead Four Fast Guns has ended up a forgotten film.

I still recommend giving this film a viewing because the majority of what's there on the screen is pretty darn good.

Four Fast Guns is an interesting if not completely successful B western, done at a time when these kinds of films and stories were finding more of a home on the small screen. I could have seen this one as an episode on The Virginian for instance which was a 90 minute show.

James Craig has an encounter with a 'town tamer' on the trail and when he gets prodded into a fight he kills the prodder. Craig goes on into the town with the name of Purgatory and proceeds to take the job of town tamer.

Who Purgatory wants to eliminate is Paul Richards, once a fast gun himself, but now limited to running the saloon and all the organized outlawry in the area. Richards is limited also because he's in a wheelchair due to a broken back. And apparently he's also limited as far as wife Martha Vickers is concerned.

Richards sends a series of gunmen against Craig, Four Fast Guns to be precise. Three come up short, but the fourth is Brett Halsey who presents some unique problems no one foresaw on both sides.

The B western had certainly moved way beyond the Saturday matinée kiddie trade. You wouldn't have a Roy Rogers western dealing with something like impotence. Four Fast Guns probably would have been more explicit but for the Code.

Four Fast Guns was done on the cheap so it won't get a higher rating from me. Still it's an interesting work.

There are so Many Westerns Shown on Big and Small Screens in the 1950's that for the Sanity of Film-Buffs Everywhere,

is in Desperate Need of a Serious Culling from the Innumerable Herd, and Separated from the Routine, Unremarkable, Fodder, Band-Wagon Riders and Cash-Grabs.

An Individual, with the Patience of "Job", Time-to-Spend, and a Keen-Eye could Job-a-Work the Tremendous Task of Tedium by Starting with the "Big-3" Directors...

The Western-Movies of Anthony Mann...Budd Boetticher, and John Ford...

The Collective Films of the 3 would do Any List Proud Titled...

"Great Westerns From The Decade of Westerns...The 1950's"

After the Said Round-Up of A-LIst-Productions, where Budgets were Big and could Finance "Tall-In the-Saddle" Talent.

The List Should Also Corral the Not-to-be-Forgotten, "B-Movies" without Prejudice,

Respecting the Work as "Primitive-Art" on Equal Terms with its Big-Brother Films.

"Four Fast Guns" Should be Included on that List of the "B's",

because it is Lost Among the Aforementioned Herd, and Needs to be "Wrangled" and Named as a "Hidden-Gem".

Made with a Very Limited Budget, with No Name Stars, Filmed in B&W (Widescreen), Relying on Adult Themes, a Certain "Realism" Lacking in Most, a Solid, No-Filler Script, and a Visceral Display of "Gun-Fights",

and You Have the Short-Story Version of a "Tale of the Old West" that is Entertaining, Twisty, and to the "Gun-Point"...Should Please Western-Movie-Fans.

Interesting Diverse Characters Straight Out of Dime-Novels, Larger-Than-Life Names and Personas, with Rumpled and Unironed and Dusty Outfits of the Saddle, and Showdowns Staged with Maximum Thrills and Minimum Frills.

Edgar Buchanan, as the Drunk and Comedy Relief (BIG Surprise), is the Only Diversion in this Violent Kill or be Killed Story.

Martha Vickers, 15 Years after She Got "High" and Flirted with Bogart in "The Big Sleep" (1945),

is the Wife of a Crippled, Piano-Playing, Poetry-Reading Villain (Paul Richards). She, with an Independent, but Loyal Streak.

Haggard but with a "Fast-Gun" James Craig as the "Town Tamer,

All Combine to Deliver the "Dry-Goods" in Stylishly-Gritty Fashion.

The title might vaguely ring a bell as the final film of Martha Vickers; who fifteen years earlier had a father in a wheelchair in 'The Big Sleep' and this time has a husband similarly challenged.

Despite being shot in CinemaScope, the general monochromatic drabness of the town of Purgatory (which the script is fond of reminding us the town is called, and doubtless inspired the name of the town in 'Support Your Local Gunfighter') captures the cramped bleakness and propensity for violence that probably characterised the authentic Old West.

The false town tamer (James Craig who had killed the real one and takes his place) has to wipe out the town from a crippled saloon owner who seems to hire any gunslinger in the whereabouts. We see Craig killing one by one all those supposed to kill him. Until the last one who happens to be his one kid brother (Brett Halsey)!

An odd little Western in which the four fast guns of the title include Sabin and the three men hired to kill him. Not the fastest pace, but not dull either. It's quite interesting with some nice flourishes such as three fast guns coming to take care of James Craig's false lawman, and one of them generates a twist, the rather bleak look of the town, it's inhabitants and the landscape - there's an air of brutishness prevalent and only the humour by Edgar Buchanan as the deputy lightens things. The most interesting element is Paul Richard's character- a disabled villain who has a penchant for poetry and piano playing. But there's a twisted aura about him, especially when he plays a discordant note when something annoys him. It's an interesting and above average western which can appear boring but it isn't. It reminds me of Terror in a Texas Town, another odd western with that bleakness.