CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

theoneheart Fonda plays a cowardly mayor who lets a outlaw rape, kill and burn down his town. He stays to rebuild the town. He pseudo marries a saloon girl the badman raped and traumatized then happily refuses to even pretend to prepare to protect her. When the outlaw returns, he delays action until the badman rapes and kills another saloon girl before he burns down the saloon and kills the town sheriff. When the mass murderer runs out of bullets, Fonda shoots and injures him. Then Fonda arrogantly carries the badman to safety in his wife's home yelling at her for wanting the man who raped her and killed others dead. The injured badman then grabs his wife who calls to their adopted son for help. When the son attempts to shoot this mass murderer who also killed his father, Fonda knocks the boy down to protect the badman causing the boy to shoot and kill his mother. Is Fonda the villain and the boy devastated after killing his mother? No! We learn the town is saved by the payroll and Fonda and his adopted son live happily ever after. Fonda and the other characters performed well. The writers definition of heroism left much to be desired.

jimakros this is one of the lousiest movies i've ever seen.The only reason i kept watching this is because i was trying to understand why H.Fonda was in this movie.It seems to be trying to promote pacifism but its so stupidly done that it actually manages the complete opposite,the viewer is convinced by the end of this movie that guns and violence are absolutely necessary.Fonda's character doesn't make any sense other than he is a total spineless coward.There is absolutely no rational excuse for his actions.The whole story is supposed to convince the viewer that Fonda's character is right,but there is very little argument in favor of a man who just sits around doing nothing to stop evil because he is afraid. Seems to me Fonda had played too many heroes before this and tried something different without thinking if it made any sense. Lousy and pointless movie.

plorenzini-1 Well, I can't add much to what has already been written. But I would say that the best roles, for me, were those played by Lon Chaney Jr and Aldo Ray. The former, playing a barkeep, is memorable as his sole concern is protecting his whiskey and bar/prostitute business from the "gentleman" (as he calls the crazed killer). Meanwhile, Aldo, an actor of significant abilities, is memorable as well but mainly due to the fact that while being forced to sink so low to do this role, he makes it work. Playing pure and barbarous evil, what is most striking is that he says nothing in the film. All he is given to do is drink, rape, beat, kill and laugh as a man who is insane with violence of all kinds. How strange that an actor whose voice was particularly distinctive, was given a role with no lines to speak of. And how strange too that this same man would some 24 years later die of throat cancer.

moonspinner55 Residents of a lawless three-horse town in the Old West are paralyzed with fear after psychopathic stranger Aldo Ray arrives, shooting people and setting fires. Time passes, and lawyer-turned-mayor Henry Fonda helps rebuild what's left of the community, but when Ray returns, Fonda has to confront his own fear and mortality. Although the story sounds promising, this cheapjack execution is not, and Ray (despite some cackling) has no character to play and virtually no dialogue. Lots of familiar western-movie faces in the cast, but the characters are clichés and cut-outs, and the melodramatic plotting is only useful for unintended laughs. Janice Rule plays a traumatized saloon hostess with an Irish brogue that comes and goes, and poor Lon Chaney (Jr.) has a miserable excuse for a role as an alcoholic bartender. Fonda is stalwart, as usual, but the surroundings have no atmosphere and Burt Kennedy's direction has absolutely no artistry (he points the camera and shoots). Some incidentals in the theme bring to mind the later "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean", but that film was more ambitious and engrossing than this extremely modest underachiever. * from ****