Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)

Some things I liked some I did not.

Purely Joyful Movie!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Last Train From Gun Hill announces its intentions early on as our hero Marshal Matt Morgan (Kirk Douglas) retells an embroidered tale about a showdown with trail criminals. His audience is a small group of young boys who have all heard the story before and know the story but enjoy the performance of the storyteller.Conversely we know the tale in the film well as one of Old West justice and we are certain that regardless of the obstacles presented to our hero he will triumph in bringing the bad guys to pay for what they have done.Director John Sturges may have been painting by the numbers in many of the films places. The casting is good, but with could have been better with another actor in as Greg Beldon- not that Anthony Quinn is not a powerful figure, but I'm not sure he fits as the father of the spineless Earl Holliman.John Sturges had made Gunfight at the O.K. Corral 2 years earlier, and that film had carved into stone the legacy of Western justice against the outlaws of the land. Perhaps Sturges was warming up his palette for The Magnificent Seven that would come just a year after Last Train from Gun Hill, although for my money Magnificent Seven covers over the gunslinger myth with such Teflon veneer that it almost feels like cowpoke porn.Last Train from Gun Hill automatically mythologizes its action with the initial set piece which includes children as ready participants and audience for the lore of the West, and this child-like way of viewing the narrative colors the entire story.Women characters in the film fall into easily classified categories. The good woman, the Indian wife of Matt dies at the outset and sets into motion the chain of events that force the Matt to confront the racial bias in the western community, forcing him to eventually choose between revenge for good, or allowing the bad elements to remain. The rest of the female characters from the start are broken into two kinds of one type. The saloon woman who services the men is played by Carolyn Jones, a character who formally worked in the saloon and now was pure at heart. Her back-story as the love of the morally conflicted Greg Belden diverts our attentions, but when it becomes clear that Belden has not the depth of character to sustain a healthy relationship, it is distinguished.The film ultimately is one of revenge for the betterment of the community, and that the mythic West still stands tall as a place where one regards the legacy over the truth. Still, it delivers a satisfying finale to the Douglas-driven angst of his character and reaffirms the poetic justice of the Old West.

Beautiful scenery, beautiful color, a somewhat stellar cast, appropriately tense music score by Dimitri Tiomkin, very good directing by John Sturges, excellent producing by Hal Wallis, and an a la "High Noon" storyline all combine to make this an exciting Hal Wallis western,a favorite of mine. Again, it is so very much like "High Noon" and "3:10 to Yuma" as well. The two outstanding veteran actors are very much alike in their character portrayals: Anthony Quinn, who plays Craig Belden, the rich owner of the town of Gun Hill, is a good friend to Sheriff Matt Morgan(Kirk Douglas) from Pawnee, OK, and has been his friend for years, until Morgan must take Craig's son Rick back to Pawnee because he has raped Belden's Indian wife, and lets Belden know that he must take Rick back. Similarly, Morgan has been a good friend to Craig, until the moment that the sheriff delivers the bad news; they both become convincing enemies to each other. Earl Holliman does well in the stigmatic role as Craig's spoiled brat son Rick, Walter Sande adapts well to his role as the owned coward of a sheriff in Gun Hill, and Carolyn Jones portrays well a tough-skinned lady whom no sensible person wants to tangle with; she plays the lover of the widowed Craig Belden who becomes caring toward the sheriff. The superb music director Dimitri Tiomkin was his outstanding self as his music conveys, and the Old West movie site Old Tucson was the perfect place to film this cinematic piece. Again, I like the color, the acting, the action, and the tense plot. Yes, I personally thought it was outstanding.

See it – A man with high ideals stands alone in a town that's sitting around, waiting for him to get killed. We've seen this premise before with movies like "High Noon" and "3:10 to Yuma." But each one has a unique plot in its own right, and the similarities that exist are the vital basics that make a western great. In this western masterpiece, Kirk Douglas plays a sheriff who seeks vengeance against the men who murdered his wife. When he tracks them down, he discovers that one of them is his best friend's son. His friend, played beautifully by Anthony Quinn, owns the town and will do everything in his power to make sure Douglas doesn't get on the last train from Gun Hill.

This comment is not offered for titillation's sake but questioning the film's showing Kirk Douglas' Native American wife in the opening minutes when she was raped and murdered. Earl Holliman's character stripped off her blouse, though not before the camera lens but with a whip. Then there's a cut to a shot of her struggling to be modest. Next we heard shouts of horror from her character without viewing her. It was pretty clear what occurred. I was amazed for a '59 film that it showed her upper torso almost naked with outlines of her lower breasts. I'm gay, so it wasn't a big turn-on for me, but didn't it seem a bit amazing for a time when standards and practices were semi-prudes well before more open sexuality came into Hollywood about five years later? Or did I get it wrong or do I not know how Hollywood captured sexual/horror scenes in the late '50s?