Well I would have lost a bet big time on whether Randolph Scott and Angela Lansbury ever played romantic leads opposite each other. Somehow that just doesn't compute with me. It doesn't help that Scott was sixty eight at the time of filming, with Lansbury looking quite lovely at thirty years of age. My image of Lansbury was formed during her "Murder She Wrote" days, so catching her as a saloon gal singing 'Mother Says I Mustn't' is just a bit too far removed for me to process. Although I have seen her in other early pictures she made, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised when she shows up looking glam any more.
Though it was relevant to the story of an aging town marshal attempting to wait out the transition from lawlessness to civilized society, I don't think I've seen another Western where so many of a town's citizens were looking for the lawman to retire. With a pretty good record of keeping the peace, you'd think they'd want him to hang around some more. That angle probably could have been written somewhat better, it kept distracting me every time Molly (Ruth Donnelly) or Doc Wynn (Wallace Ford) tried to convince Calem Ware (Scott) to retire.
One scene I had trouble with was the showdown between gunslinger Harley Baskam (Michael Pate) and the marshal. It didn't even look like Ware went for his gun, almost as if he was accepting the forced retirement some of the folks of Medicine Bend were recommending. Talk about a tough way to go. I've been watching Hugh O'Brian in his Wyatt Earp TV series, and he made it a regular practice to crease bad guys in the head, but I have this nagging suspicion that it wouldn't have been all that easy to do. Here it looked like Ware was a goner, even if the shot by Baskam went astray; I'm sure he was aiming for the body.
But as usual in these Fifties oaters, the formula brings Calem back around to face his enemies another day, and less than twenty four hours or so since he got plugged. Using the old 'under the swinging door' trick, Ware takes out Baskam who already had his gun drawn in what would have been an unfair shootout. If you've been in enough westerns like Scott, I guess you knew how to make things work out.
Though it was relevant to the story of an aging town marshal attempting to wait out the transition from lawlessness to civilized society, I don't think I've seen another Western where so many of a town's citizens were looking for the lawman to retire. With a pretty good record of keeping the peace, you'd think they'd want him to hang around some more. That angle probably could have been written somewhat better, it kept distracting me every time Molly (Ruth Donnelly) or Doc Wynn (Wallace Ford) tried to convince Calem Ware (Scott) to retire.
One scene I had trouble with was the showdown between gunslinger Harley Baskam (Michael Pate) and the marshal. It didn't even look like Ware went for his gun, almost as if he was accepting the forced retirement some of the folks of Medicine Bend were recommending. Talk about a tough way to go. I've been watching Hugh O'Brian in his Wyatt Earp TV series, and he made it a regular practice to crease bad guys in the head, but I have this nagging suspicion that it wouldn't have been all that easy to do. Here it looked like Ware was a goner, even if the shot by Baskam went astray; I'm sure he was aiming for the body.
But as usual in these Fifties oaters, the formula brings Calem back around to face his enemies another day, and less than twenty four hours or so since he got plugged. Using the old 'under the swinging door' trick, Ware takes out Baskam who already had his gun drawn in what would have been an unfair shootout. If you've been in enough westerns like Scott, I guess you knew how to make things work out.