User reviews

In the Old west there are always the men who live breathe violence and the women who hold their breath. A famous ¨town tamer¨ named Clit Tollinger (Robert Mitchum) comes hired by the citizens to rid the gunslingers (Leo Genn, Claude Atkins, among others), Land Baron's hoodlums . There he meets the blacksmith (Emile Meyer) , his daughter (Karen Sharpe), her boyfriend(John Lupton), the marshal(Henry Hull) and Saloon owner (Ted De Corsia). Clint as lawman is appointed deputy to bring peace and puts some posters saying the following one : ¨ Warning , wearing of guns or other weapons in town is banned. Check all hardware at the marshal's office ¨. Clint finds his ex-girlfriend, a local madame (Jan Sterling) in charge of the Saloon girls (Angie Dickinson, Barbara Lawrence, among them). But the town council afraid of the raw methods carried out by Clint . At the end the kingpin landowner appears and attempts to murder Tollinger with his own hands.

This is a tremendously exciting story of a sheriff-for-hire who had only one more killing to go . It begins as a slow-moving Western but follows to surprise us with dark characters and solid plot. The tale is almost grim , a pacifier comes to a town just in time to make sure its citizenry but later the events get worse . The highlights of the movie are the burning at Saloon and the climatic showdown at the ending. Phenomenal , great role for Robert Mitchum as avenger angel and bittered gunfighter, he's the whole show. It contains vivid and lively musical score by Alex North (Spartacus, Cleopatra). Atmospheric cinematography in black and white by Lee Garmes. The motion picture was stunningly realized by Richard Wilson (Al Capone , Three in Attic) who made good Westerns as ¨Invitation to a gunfighter and ¨Zane Grey¨ episodes. Watchable results for this offbeat Western.

Clint Tollinger arrives in a small town looking for his estranged wife and news of his daughter, tho he finds her, the chance of any sort of reconciliation is very slim. Whilst here, the sheriff and the important townsfolk learn of Tollinger's reputation as a pistol specialist town tamer. As they are living in fear of a mysterious landowner who is stripping the town from them bit by bit, they hold a meeting that chooses to hire Tollinger to rid the town of it's unsavoury elements.

Man With The Gun seems to be either a forgotten piece or a vastly under seen one, for at the time of me writing this, it has just over 200 votes and a paltry 9 user comments written for it on IMDb. It's a shame on either score because although the production values scream out that this is a "B" movie Western, this is a fine entry in the Western genre. That the piece takes on a rather standard plot theme of an harangued town turning to an avenging dark angel, probably hasn't done the film any favours over the years, I myself read the synopsis and thought it's just another in the line of similarly themed pictures. Yet I was pleasantly surprised to find a darkly dramatic picture boasting many enjoyable moments, both technically and as a functioning story.

Robert Mitchum is in the lead as Tollinger, perfectly cast, he strides thru the picture like some brooding menace. We often talk about the screen presence that John Wayne and Charlton Heston had (justifiably of course), Mitchum is right up there with the best of them. One sequence here sees him standing in the shadows at the back of a room as a meeting takes place, we don't see his face, but we can feel that piercing brood staring out at us! The rest of the cast are very much in Mitchum's shadow, so really it's solely with the big man that the films acting credentials are high. Perhaps it's unfair to single out Ted de Corsia for a kick? but Man With The Gun's minor failings are with its villains, and sadly de Corsia is lacking any sort of villainesque menace.

The score from Alex North is excellently layered (fans of Spartacus will certainly be pricking their ears up) and the cinematography from Lee Garmes is highly impressive when one realises that the majority of this picture was shot on the studio lot. Directed and co-written by first time director Richard Wilson, Man With The Gun holds few surprises for the genre, but it's dark in tone, violent and above all else, highly watchable. 7.5/10

I don't remember ever seeing this one before tonight, probably the title sounded so ordinary it kept passing me by. But it is a well crafted b Western, with an interestingly brooding storyline complemented by acting veering from the good to corny.

Robert Mitchum slopes into wide open town looking for his wife and news of their daughter, and stays for a time as town-tamer. As usual the good business folk have mixed emotions - they want to get rid of the baddies but like the business they bring. It still applies: relax drink and gambling laws and encourage the industries but pretend to deplore the seedy effects it can have on ordinary people. What's fascinating about this film is Mitchum's cynically intense portrayal in going about cleaning the town of baddies, and the townsfolk's acceptance that his violent methods were the only ones. Favourite bit: the sudden demise of 2 of the baddies in the Red Dog saloon. The firing of the main saloon bordered on nasty, but it was an effective way to combat the spread of poison.

Overall a very good film with its only fault tending to be a little hokeyness - not so good for Do-Gooders who would probably prefer a lifetime of negotiation with Evil rather than end it.

Clint Tollinger arrives in a small western town looking for his estranged wife, who left him and now runs the local show saloon. His presence is greeting by suspicion but when the town leaders discover the nature of Tollinger's business they propose that they employ him to clean up the town of the problem of Dade Holman's violent influence. The solution may be just as bad as the problem but they take the risk.

With a nice dark character with a lot of anger and pain in the front of the film this western is enjoyable tough. Although the plot is fairly typical of a western b-movie, the tone and edge to it means that it comes over as much more. The basic story sees Tollinger taking on the rule of Holman but it has undercurrents of pain and anger as the lead confronts his wife. We meet Tollinger as a gentle, quiet man but gradually we see him to be violent, heartless and full of bitterness; it is solid development that is at the heart of the film's dark tone. Of course it still follows the genre traditions and will appeal to fans of such while also having enough else going on to make it differ from the Technicolor westerns of the same period.

Wilson is responsible for the dark tone as both writer and director; shot is stark black and white he frames some interesting shots and is not afraid to be aggressive or shocking considering the period. Mitchum takes to his character well and always seemed to enjoy the darker more complex characters that some of his westerns would serve him up with. Sterling does well with her firm character until near the end where she becomes more of a genre staple. Support behind these two is roundly good but the film is very much Mitchum's and he knows it.

Overall it is a solid western that gradually gets down to just going where you expect it to. However for the vast majority it has a dark tone and feel to it that makes it much more interesting and more likely to appeal beyond the limitations of those that like the colourful b-movie westerns of the period.

In Man With the Gun Robert Mitchum plays Clint Tollinger, a man who hires his gun out to clean out lawless towns in the west of which there seems to be a never ending supply. But he comes to this particular town in search of his estranged wife, Jan Sterling who since she left him has taken up the occupation as Madam of the local bordello. Of course the girls which include Barbara Lawrence and the still unknown Angie Dickinson are still called dance hall girls, but the Code was slowly cracking.

It's by chance he gets drawn into the town politics involving a big cattle baron who runs roughshod over every thing and every one in the general vicinity. The town council hires him to clean out the place of gunmen and sheriff Henry Hull makes it official by making him his deputy and giving him a free hand as per Mitchum's terms. The results ain't pretty.

Mitchum's a grim, bitter man heading the cast of a grim and bitter western. Part of his bitterness is the estrangement between him and Sterling. There's quite a history behind it as the movie shows.

Man With a Gun is a good western, but I have to say I was let down by the climatic gunfight at the end. It takes place on a deserted town street while most of the cast is at a town council meeting. James Westerfield plays a part similar to J. Edward Bromberg's role in Jesse James. He sets up a nasty ambush for Mitchum. But I think the plan fell flat in the writing. If Mitchum didn't suspect he was being set up before he did with gunman Leo Gordon following him, he was not the smart guy we'd been led to believe.

Of course if you want to see what I'm talking about then by all means see Man With a Gun.

This is an OK film. Yes, each cliché arrives on schedule, each caricature is present and correct, mostly with the recognisable face of a character actor you cannot quite name. Never mind, this is a western. Generally speaking most westerns conform to a formula that pretty much approximates a morality play. Whatever the ingredients good, in the form of a rugged individual, will overcome bad. The women may be innocent and young, world weary and embittered or careworn and wise (or desperate) but most, will fall in love with the hero and one will ride off with him. Robert Mitchum, 'The Town Tamer', is as effective as always. Jan Sterling with the severely styled makeup and hairdo, over sized eyes and turned down mouth is oddly beautiful. Angie Dickinson is strikingly pretty in a small part. The fat baddie appears in child size buggy and duly meets his fate along with and his evil henchman. There are no surprises but it's a satisfying film for a lazy afternoon.

A gunman (Robert Mitchum) strolls into town in the Old West and is hired as a town-tamer. Henry Hull plays the aged and cautious marshal while John Lupton and Emile Meyer appear as citizens. Leo Gordon and Claude Akins are on hand as heavies.

"Man with the Gun" (1955) is a quality town-bound Western with Robert Mitchum towering as a laconic righteous gunfighter. The stock plot is standard, but the cast, the writing, the performances and the convincing town set make it compelling.

Another highlight is the stellar cast of women, including Jan Sterling (Nelly), Barbara Lawrence (Ann), Karen Sharpe (Stella) and Angie Dickinson (Kitty), all stunning.

The only issue is the lack of color unless you don't mind B&W. I had no problem acclimating.

The film runs 1 hour, 24 minutes, and was shot at Samuel Goldwyn Studios in West Hollywood, California.

GRADE: B+

Whether he's playing a Film Noir tough-guy, or a no-nonsense, shoot-em-up cowboy - Robert Mitchum is, without question, my #1 favourite actor from Hollywood's golden years (the 40s & 50s), bar none.

And, with that said - I'll tell you this - Had Mitchum not been the star of this somewhat run-of-the-mill Western-vehicle (from 1955) - Then I probably would've only given "Man With The Gun" a lower rating of 4 stars.

(Anyway) - As the story goes - In this 80-minute, b&w Western - Mitchum plays Clint Tollinger a "shoot-first-ask-questions-later"-type of gunslinger, who arrives in the slutty/lawless town of Sheridan on personal business only to find himself cleaning up this filthy rats-hole 'cause nobody else has the guts to stand up to that mean, cussing hombre, Ed Pinchot, and his band of belligerent bad boys, who rule all at the point of a gun.

there should be a sub-genre in the Western called 'the Robert Mitchum Western'. Mitchum's brilliant, idiosyncratic, usually undervalued Westerns import his film noir persona to etch some compellingly dark character sketches, and bring an elegiac world-weariness more familiar from the films of Sam Peckinpah. 'Man with the gun' is one of his best. Directed by Orson Welles protege Richard Wilson, it is a stark, monochrome beauty, full of chilling silhouettes and terrifying outbursts of savage violence, as Mitchum comes to tame a town terrorised by a monopolist with a private army. Mitchum's regression from soft-spoken stranger to deranged murderer, with a host of dark emotions in between, is a marvel of expressive, physical acting.

A western that makes many contemporary film directors blush with envy: perfect setting, intelligent dialogues, socio-psychological soundness in the script, good acting, camera direction and music without errors. A semi-unknown jewel that delights the intelligent viewer.

Maybe it's having had to endure four years of Mr. I Alone Can Fix It in power but I find these Stranger Comes To Town And Solves All Problems pics highly resistible (unless, of course, there is an interesting twist like, say, Spencer Tracy's karate skills in "Bad Day" and of which there is not a whiff here). Throw in a way too talky screenplay, especially burdensome in the love scenes between Mitchum and Sterling and, as other reviewers have noted, desultory direction, particularly of action scenes, and you have a profoundly ordinary western that does not even rise to the level of a decent "Rifleman" episode. Solid C. PS...Even in a minor, uncredited role and as a brunette, no less, Angie Dickinson's hotness comes through.

There are westerns and there are westerns with many actors and then there is a Robert Mitchum western....in this film Mitchum plays a no nonsense, hard as nails character as a so called "town tamer"....he follows his estranged wife played coldly by Jan Sterling as she is the madame of a group of dance hall girls...Mitchum wants to make amends with his ex-wife Sterling but she is cold as ice toward him. Mitchum accepts the job as a combo sheriff and "town tamer" and then manages to shoot up the whole place and fight with anyone who gets in his way....he does not believe in taking any so called prisoners. Along the way Mitchum defends a local young man and his wife who are being terrorized by the local hoodlum who runs the town from his distant ranch. The town council soon gets very wary of Mitchum and wants to see him kicked out of the job...Mitchum in his normal, cold and calculating way tells the town to take a hike - that he wants to continue in his job. Check out a very young Angie Dickinson who plays a dance hall girl...must have been one of her first roles. In the end a good gun fighting scene with a set up dance hall girl and a town misfit played by Leo Gordon who along with the local kingpin rancher tries to wipe out Mitchum. Mitchum handles this role like a pro - cold and calculating, always looking over his shoulder for the next confrontation. One is never far away. A very young Karen Sharpe has a good role as a young housewife infatuated with Mitchum. In the end Mitchum is shot up and winds up in the arms of his estranged wife Sterling. Solid western, very enjoyable....Mitchum up to top standards as a hard charging sheriff. One of Mitchum's best B westerns.

This is yet another film based upon one of the classic Western plots, the one about the fearless lawman or gunman who helps the inhabitants of a town or a group of homesteaders stand up against a gang of lawless desperadoes, often in the pay of a corrupt local rancher or other powerful business interests. I have come to think of this as the "Dodge City" plot, after one of the earliest well-known films to feature it, but there are many other examples, including "My Darling Clementine", "Gunfight at the OK Corral" and the various other retellings of the Wyatt Earp story, "Destry Rides Again", "Shane", "High Noon", Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo" (and its remakes) and several Clint Eastwood films such as "High Plains Drifter" and "Pale Rider".

This film was originally released in the United Kingdom as "The Trouble Shooter", although when it turns up on British television these days it is generally referred to by its American title "Man with the Gun". (I understand that it is also sometimes known as "Deadly Peacemaker", making it a rare example of a film with three official titles). It is set in a nameless Western town which is being terrorised by a gang of gunmen hired by Dade Holman, a wealthy and powerful cattleman who hopes to force the local people out so he can acquire their property cheaply, and opens with a striking image of one of the bad guys shooting a little boy's dog in front of the child. The townspeople decide that enough is enough, and call in Clint Tollinger, a gun for hire with a reputation as a "town tamer". The film then narrates how Tollinger goes about his task. A complication is that Tollinger is the former lover (or possibly the former husband) of Nelly Bain, the manageress of the local "dance hall". This, in fact, appears to be a euphemism for the local brothel, but this is never spelt out clearly. Prostitution may have been a fact of life in the Old West, but in the fifties there were some facts of life which the censors insisted remain hidden from public view.

Robert Mitchum made a number of Westerns throughout his career, although they were not always among his best films; he tended to be at his best in film noir, playing characters who were, if not outright villains like his Max Cady in "Cape Fear", at least morally ambiguous. He brings something of this quality to Tollinger, who is referred to as "the man in grey", the implication being that if he is not quite as black as the villains he is not as white as the driven snow either. Although he has been deputised by the town marshal, this is one film where the dividing line between an officially appointed lawman and a hired gun is a thin one. Tollinger has about him something of the ruthlessness which characterises his opponents, and his methods, such as setting fire to the town saloon, are not always ones which the law would sanction.

The film does not, however, seriously call into question the "shoot first, ask questions later" philosophy of law enforcement in the way in which Michael Winner was later to do in his revisionist Western "Lawman". Tollinger may sometimes go over the top, but he is nevertheless the hero and his opponents are the bad guys. The film ends with the town well and truly tamed and the audience are left to conclude that peace and justice do indeed grow out of the barrel of a gun. In the fifties such a moral was not thought to be in any way exceptionable; indeed, it is a common philosophy in the cinema, and one not confined to the fifties or, for that matter, to Westerns. It is a philosophy which underlies just about every "tough cop" movie from "Dirty Harry" onwards, and most war films except those with an explicitly anti-war message.

The trouble with "Man with a Gun", at least when seen from a modern perspective, is that it is likely to leave the viewer with a sense of déjà vu. In 1955 the "strong man with a gun" theme might have seemed slightly fresher than it does nowadays, but even then this film might have struck many people as an inferior imitation of "High Noon". Mitchum plays his part well, but none of the other acting contributions are particularly memorable, and this film is far from being the best on its particular theme; I would rate all those listed in my opening paragraph considerably higher. The basic plot became so well-known (and, indeed, such a cliché) that Mel Brooks chose it as the one to send up in his satirical spoof Western "Blazing Saddles". Richard Wilson's film strikes me as being the sort of thing that Brooks was aiming at. 6/10

If I would have to describe "Man with the Gun" in a word, I would sadly have to choose 'mundane.' I say 'sadly' because not only does the movie star the great Robert Mitchum, but because it does boast a good setup, a dark tone, and some good initiative-packed promise. But the movie suffers and condescends into being the average, dissenting B-movie Western and a little shy on entertainment value.

The premise is a very similar one. Robert Mitchum plays the stereotypical lone gunslinger with a troubled past, a quick draw, a sharp choice of words, and a never-say-die attitude. He is hired by fearful yet reluctant townsmen as a "town-tamer" to clean up the riffraff in their establishment. The riffraff is the hired hands of a land-grabber who does not make a physical appearance until very late in the movie (a trait of the movie that I did like), who are tormenting a homesteader. This is a setup that was done many other times, sometimes worse, sometimes better such as in Clint Eastwood's classic "High Plains Drifter." There are some really good elements to "Man with the Gun" and some really mundane and pall parts as well. The good: the performances not only by Robert Mitchum, but also by the lovely, unsung actress Karen Sharpe. The tone is dark and a little nihilistic, and I appreciated the tactic of hiding the bad guy for the majority of the picture and to avoid the typical clichés of when the Western rancher runs in with the iron-figured gunslinger. The screenwriters also did put the effort into fleshing out the protagonist, however, they only succeeded about halfway. As a gunslinger, the character works, as a human being, the light is very dim.

As for the bad parts: mostly the movie just seems really mundane and terrene. There isn't any real connection between any of the characters. None of them stand out. The action scenes are only moderately well-done and they are so spaced apart in favor of droll emptiness that when they do come, they don't heighten the flow of the picture very much. And overall, the picture just follows a rather predictable formula and foundation for a B-movie Western. It's not a bad movie, but it's rather dull, and the ending does not quite work.

Never heard of Richard Wilson as a director and I am less than surprised about that after watching this innocuous piece of directing.

Mitchum carries the movie with a solid performance, Karen Sharpe is good to look at and seems unable to take her eyes off Mitchum, Jan Sterling seems poorly used as madam at the local brothel, and the real surprise in this movie comes from a young and beautiful but uncredited Angie Dickinson, who would catch John F. Kennedy's roving eye in the near future.

The big baddy only turns up at the end and is shot like an animal, and all the other villains get whacked. Claude Akins' demise is memorable for its improbability: he is shot, gets his foot caught in the stirrup as he falls from his horse, gets pulled along, and in a show of remarkable strength and fitness before passing on, he sits up straight, gets his foot off the stirrup, and bites the dust dead as a door nail.

Good photography helps, even if the action sequences are by and large less than credible.

A decent western from a director making his debut--Richard Wilson. Actor Mitchum carries the film. Actress Jan Sterling has an impressive screen presence but her voice is not as impressive. she is more interesting here than in Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole."

It's the town of Sheridan City. The movie opens with bad cowboy Ed Pinchot shooting a boy's dog for no good reason. Clint Tollinger (Robert Mitchum) rides into town looking for his estranged wife Nelly Bain. She runs her saloon girls and refuses to see him. He keeps asking about Beth. The town is under threat from powerful rancher Dade Holman. The sheriff is weak. The town's men hire Tollinger who is a notorious town-tamer.

It's interesting to see a hero turn into the murky middle. Mitchum has played all sides. The movie does miss a good foil for him. This is a mano-a-mano story. Dade Holman is not on-screen enough to be the foil. Pinchot is too small as a character. It needs a bigger opponent for this to achieve real greatness.

With lots of intricate subordinate plot in the overall probably familiar tale of a tough town tamer, this script by N.B. Stone, Jr., and Richard Wilson is very well served by an excellent cast, led by Robert Mitchum.

Jan Sterling, a superlative actress not often enough given a character to show her talent, is second billed as a strong and tough woman who chaperones her female charges, who only dance and entertain, but who are seen by the blue-nosed women of the town as something worse.

Karen Sharpe, who has never looked prettier, very girl-next-door-ish, plays the daughter of the town blacksmith who is also the town leader.

The daughter is conflicted but her father, played beautifully by Emile Meyer, is not.

One of the glories of this excellent motion picture is the number of other characters -- I hesitate to say "minor" because they all figure in the story -- whose lives and actions are pivotal.

By one of those coincidences, I just finished a novel by Louis L'Amour with a very similar plot, except the town tamer in "The Empty Land" really doesn't want his role while Mitchum's Clint Tollinger does.

This might be the best script for a movie I've ever watched about a town tamer. It has depth and darkness and a realism not often found in Westerns of the 1950s era. Excellent script and excellent cast make this a movie I recommend.

And you can see it at YouTube. When I watched, it was interrupted by too many commercials, but that's a fairly low price to see it.

(IMO) - Robert Mitchum was the sort of actor who could not only convincingly play a "film noir" tough guy - But, I found that he was also very believable as a rugged, no-nonsense cowboy dude, as well.

And, here in 1955's "Man With The Gun" - Mitchum plays the sharp-shooting "town-tamer", Clint Tollinger who casually arrives in the lawless town of Sheridan one day only to find out that he's confronted with more trouble than he had initially bargained for.

So - If you are someone who enjoys watching vintage Westerns, then, I'm sure you'll find "Man With The Gun" to be a fairly satisfying view (for the most part).

Bob Mitchum saunters and shoots his way through this nag of a horse opera in a state of semiconsciousness. The famed laconic style of the actor remains in a state of deep torpor throughout for which he can hardly be blamed given it's generic teleplay storyline that was running rampant in the early days of western dominated TV.

Clint Tollinger in search of his family rides into a town menaced by a mysterious land baron whose boys tend to do as they please. The local sheriff is a doormat and when word gets around Tollinger is "town tamer" they sign him up. He delivers immediately by dusting a couple and a few more while cozying up to the local madame (Jan Sterling).

From it's poorly paced heavy handed opening scene Gun is a hackneyed mess of stilted performances and fumbled editing with Tollinger spending most of his time giving bad guys the edge before goading and wasting them. Visually it basically moves between a quartet of interiors and main street (which looks very much like the one used in The OxBow Incident) where the lackluster histrionics play out around the sedated Mitch whose law and order policy starts to litter the place with desperadoes. Performances are basically flat, save for an outrageous accented turn from Ted DeCorsia as Frenchy and James Westerfield over few brief moments. Mitchum whose laid back style would make him a film legend cannot get past the banal dialogue however and director Wilson ends the picture as it began in the same mawkish fashion.