Johnny Concho (1956) User Reviews

"Johnny Concho" is low-budget Sinatra vehicle

[chuck-reilly · 7/10 · 16 May 2008]

Most film critics agree that Frank Sinatra was a bit miscast as the titular character "Johnny Concho" (1956). That said, he does as much as he can with this thankless role of a coward who slowly comes to grips with his failings. Sinatra's Concho has the run of a small western town due to his older brother Red's reputation as a ruthless gunslinger. His misrule comes to a crashing end, however, when his brother is gunned down. Unfortunately for kid brother Frankie, he doesn't find out about Red Concho's death until the men who killed him (played by William Conrad and Christopher Dark) inform him nonchalantly during a poker game. For most of the film afterward, Conrad and Dark insult, degrade, humiliate, and in general, make utter fools out of cowardly Frank and the rest of the weak-willed townsfolk. Conrad, playing a cold-blooded enigmatic murderer, has a field day with his role while his terse partner-in-crime (Dark) is the perfect compliment. Shaking in his boots, Frank ends up riding away with his girlfriend (Phyllis Kirk) to start a new cowardly life in another town.

All's well that ends well, however. After getting an earful of criticism and a much-needed wake-up call from a firebrand preacher (Keenan Wynn in top form), Frank decides to finally become a real man and return to face down Conrad and Dark. File the ending under the category of "a man's got to do what a man's got to do." Luckily for Frank, since he can't hit the side of a barn door with a load of buckshot, the townsfolk all pitch in to help him during the final shootout. In wrenching detail, Conrad and Dark end up writhing on the ground as their bodies fill up with lead. And it couldn't happen to two more deserving fellows.

Not really much in this film except for Conrad and Dark's performances. Keenan Wynn also livens up the proceedings, but his screen time is all too brief. Sinatra, appearing embarrassed throughout, does the best he can with his weak character. Ms. Kirk, as always, looks like the best woman west of the Pecos.

Same Bloodline. Different Cut.

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 15 March 2014]

Johnny Concho is directed by Don McGuire who also co-writes the screenplay with David P. Harmon. It stars Frank Sinatra, Keenan Wynn, William Conrad, Christopher Dark and Phyllis Kirk. Music is by Nelson Riddle and cinematography by William Mellor.

It has become something of a forgotten Sinatra movie, courtesy of distribution issues and a general apathy towards Sinatra's performance in the title role. One glance at the few reviews that exist out there in the internet world shows it to be very much a quintessential divisive movie. There doesn't appear to be any middle ground, folk either like it plenty or loath its very existence. I fall into the former camp.

Plot has Sinatra as Johnny Concho, a man firmly trading on his brother's fearsome reputation as one of the Wests' most deadly pistoleers. So much so that although his brother, Red Concho, doesn't even live in the town of Cripple Creek, Johnny is able to do as he pleases; win at cards without showing his hand, stay rent free in the best room at the hotel and etc. However, this all changes when gunmen Tallman (Conrad) and Walker (Dark) ride into town and announce that Tallman has gunned down Red Concho and that they are here to run the town whilst exposing Johnny for the coward he is...

Congratulations, you just bought yourself a $300 rat.

Sinatra for the most part here has Concho as a thoroughly dislikable man, it's actually a bold performance from Old Blue Eyes, he's up there inviting all sorts of negative reactions, either as an emotional bully or as a spineless goon, he's working hard to convince and although he's clearly wet behind the ears for a Western portrayal (it was his first go at an Oater), he gets the required impact to make the story work.

If you have seen enough Westerns over the years then you can probably guess how everything will turn out. This is a psychological Western, one that most likely had ulterior motives as per the thematics regarding events that surfaced in America during the 1950s, but it doesn't break any molds or redefine the psychological Western. But what it does do it does very well, most notably in the way director McGuire (adaptation writer, Bad Day at Black Rock) gets quality turns out of Conrad and Wynn.

The Wynn factor is annoying because he simply isn't in the film enough, but what we do get is truly hard as nails. He's playing Barney Clark, a reformed gunman - cum - preacher, who as it happens is the one to put a spine in Johnny's back with some tough love. Every scene Wynn is in positively crackles with testosterone, brought to us via the Lord's work of course! You will hanker for more of the character for sure, but enjoy what we have at least.

Then there is Conrad, turning in a wonderfully sedate lesson in villainy. There's no histrionics and no shouting, just quiet speaking, cigar chomping menace, and of course he's quick on the draw, which always helps if you want to hold a town in the palm of your hand! Sinatra is not just playing second fiddle here, he's at the back waiting to be cued in by Wynn and Conrad. This doesn't make Johnny Concho a bad film! It does make it far from being a Sinatra essential viewing for his fans, but for Western fans this is well worth taking a look at if you can snag it. Cool ending as well! 7/10

Wow! A neglected gem

[davidbaldwin-11838 · 7/10 · 1 March 2020]

Sinatra is excellent (as he so often was) in an atypical role and the whole film is a tightly wrought very fine little black and white drama. A great moral tale and suspenseful. Music very good. William Conrad and his sidekick an excellent scary pair of villains.

One of the great underrated westerns

[Charlie Goose · 22 July 1999]

This is a wonderful movie with Frank Sinatra playing against type as a mean-spirited bully who keeps an entire town under his thumb because his older brother is an infamous gunfighter. When two strangers ride into town, Johnny Concho's life is threatened and the weary townsfolk refuse to stand up for him. He is left with no choice but to show his cowardice and leave. It is only after he has nothing and no one does he finally see the strength within himself. Fabulous performances by old blue eyes, and William Conrad.

Average Western

[ragosaal · 6/10 · 4 October 2006]

I liked this film when I saw it as a kid. I've always enjoyed western with gunmen, quick draws, duels in the dusty streets, who's fastest and so on. And I still do. However when you grow older you get more demanding in some aspects about movies you didn't even notice as a kid.

As I recall "Johnny Concho" I have yo agree with some reviewer here that says it's not believable that a whole town will just do what Johnny says and give him whatever he wants just because his brother is a top gunman. Nor it is believable either -and this is my own- that a cowardly man will push the things too far even if his brother is a top gunman. That's mainly what demerits this picture: the plot is hard to swallow.

That aside -which is no minor item- "Johnny Concho" has good moments, adequate atmosphere, good photo and more than acceptable performances, that make it a film to see for western fans.

Great cast in pretty good morality play

[16mmRay · 6/10 · 17 March 2010]

Okay, Sinatra was pretty limp in his first oater. The wig was a mistake and a distraction. A cheater up front would have been enough. The script's vacillation between making him a villain and a hero was unfortunate. He should have remained a weasel to the end and been shunned for it. It took the killing of one of the townspeople to get the rest of the villagers to take matters into their own hand(guns). That said, this is still an enjoyable and sometimes engrossing play. There are several great radio players - Bill Conrad, Howard Petrie, Bill Bouchey, Russell Thorson and others who give gravitas to the script. Wallace Ford is a pathetic rabbit and Keenan Wynn is wonderful as the gunslinger-turned-preacher. The poker game is the centerpiece of the show and it is a perfect metaphor for the kind of soft tyranny that can encroach upon a community. The street set is deliberately stylized, making the film look more like a live television play than a motion picture. With some tweaking to the script this could have been a great film. It could certainly be adapted into a great play.

Wow this is a bad movie

[rooster_davis · 3/10 · 24 July 2008]

Someone here actually compared this movie in some ways to High Noon. Now that is a real stretch! I'm a big Sinatra fan including some of his acting roles but maybe the only person who could have played this part would have been Don Knotts. First off, as someone pointed out, Sinatra just doesn't have the build for a Western bad-guy wannabe. He's just too 'slight' at this point in his life. Maybe he was about the same height as say Audie Murphy, but Murphy had a pretty solid build. Sinatra comes across as the big talking little kid who nobody ought to take seriously.

The story is uninspired and really not credible. I don't want to spoil it but I think the ending and how the townspeople react in this story doesn't make any sense. Another thing, these people constantly allow themselves to be completely lorded over by some 'bad guy'. This is just a little town, so I don't get the attraction nor do I understand why the people would let themselves be dominated that way.

There is a 'love interest' in the story and if I followed it right, she was upset when the main character refused to admit who he was so some other bad guy wouldn't kill him. Now there's true love for you. 'Stand up for yourself! Tell him your name so he will kill you!' LOL. Stop, you're killing me.

Unfortunately the basic premise of the movie isn't good enough and no matter how they tried this story didn't have a logical path to follow other than into the wastebasket. Want to know why it's not on video and never shown on TV? The critics apparently panned it in 1956 and they were right - this movie is pretty bad. I would almost bet Sinatra paid someone to deep six the thing as much as possible.

You want to see a good Western where a town stands up against a bad guy? Try Tension at Table Rock, or At Gunpoint - two really, really good Westerns with that theme. Johnny Concho is Johnny Stinko. Frank, you were the greatest singer ever - and you didn't deserve to end up in a movie like this. I'm a huge fan of Westerns, I know good ones from bad, and people, this one is bad.

Coward of the County

[richardchatten · 7/10 · 19 August 2017]

In Technicolor and starring Bob Hope this story could have been hilarious if played for laughs; instead we get an extremely earnest black & white psychological western starring a 'serious' Frank Sinatra, with an appropriately moody score by Sinatra's regular arranger Nelson Riddle.

Considering that he produced the film himself, Sinatra has strangely elected to play a complete louse in the title role. Johnny is with good reason hated by the entire town of Cripple Creek, with the inexplicable exception of Phyllis Kirk (added to the script presumably to make us give a damn whether he lived or died). Moral salvation comes in the form of William Conrad and Keenan Wynn; the former is the one gunfighter even meaner and deadlier than Sinatra's late brother Red Concho, the latter an absolute blast in a late-appearing cameo as a macho gun-toting preacher who pep talks Johnny into finally finding his mojo.

As the film was building up to the usual town square shoot-out, I was thinking to myself that now would be a good moment for the assembled townfolk to shoot Conrad while his attention was on Sinatra, when - ah, but that would be telling...! Despite being such a dead shot and with so little concern for human life, with his first shot Conrad naturally only wounds Sinatra by shooting him in the shoulder; if it had been other member of the cast than the star he would have been instantly dispatched to Boot Hill for the rest of eternity.

***SPOILER WARNING*** This is a stinker!

[artzau · 2/10 · 21 October 2001]

Mercifully, there's no video of this wannabe western that a stay-afloat vehicle for Big Frank at a time when his career was floundering. The story of a weasel who lives on the reputation of his big gun brother and who gets run out of town by bad guys only to return to rally his townfolks with a new found courage must have been written by a back-room writer. All in all, this show stinks. The story is basically boring, ill-conceived and so naive that it can offend your intelligence. I must depart complete from the other reviewer who found it "...underrated..." The critics slammed it at the time and deservedly so. You'll have to catch it on the last show, if you up late and having a bout of insomnia. But, if you can sit through it, you've more fortitude than most of my movie buff friends.

Johnny concho with Sinatra was a good movie

[davidgouveia-06332 · 7/10 · 12 September 2023]

I watch it all the time.

If you want to see it sent me $2,ust joking.

Here is where I can watch it anytime. Sinatra really stood out among the other actors

I liked Bill Conrad. He always made a great

I used to look for this movie all the time and never could find it but stumbled upon it at night just surfing the web.

Funny thing it nowhere in the movie does it show red Concho.

The movie is very good and the more you watch it the more you like it,\. It is not like Once upon a time in the west with Fonda and Bronson and the beautiful Claudia Cardinale. Jason Robards is in it also. This is one of my favorite movies of all time.

I'm 83 so I've seen a lot ofthem.

Johnny Sponger

[writers_reign · 5/10 · 20 November 2016]

Given that a conch is a sponge and Sinatra, as the eponymous Concho, spends the first half of the film more or less sponging off the good burghers of Cripple Creek I think it is realistic to rename the movie Johnny Sponger. Before proceeding I think we should remind ourselves that this film was made post-From Here To Eternity, in other words Sinatra was now arguably at the peak of his career both as a singer and an actor and more or less cherry-picked his projects - he is listed on the credits here as 'producer' so clearly he was happy to play a man with absolutely nothing going for him; not only a coward, but a bully, with no regard whatsoever for ordinary people. That said it is difficult to believe - as so many here have pointed out - that an entire town would be happy to kowtow to a man who is basically a weakling on the strength that his absentee brother, Red, has the town firmly under his thumb even from miles away, or that Sinatra would experience a 'Road to Damascus' moment so dramatically. That apart there are still good things to savour; not least the deadly duo of William Conrad and Christopher Dark. Reasonable time-filler.

The Town Stands Up

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 15 August 2006]

I've always liked Johnny Concho and I wish this film were out on VHS and DVD. Frank Sinatra gives one of the most unusual performances in his career in this one.

When we first meet Frank in the film's title role, he's the brother of a notorious gunfighter who's out of town at the moment. The brother strikes terror in the heart's of the town and Frank takes full advantage of that to bully the townspeople safe and secure in his shadow. Only Phyllis Kirk has any feeling for him. She's the daughter of storekeeper Wallace Ford and Dorothy Adams.

Two other gunmen arrive William Conrad and Christopher Dark and it turns out Conrad has killed Sinatra's brother and he's coming to his town to take over. They humiliate Sinatra and run him out of town. Kirk follows him.

Overnight Sinatra turns from punk into coward and becomes a man searching for some kind of backbone. It's a well acted performance, almost as good as his Oscar nominated role in The Man With a Golden Arm. Pity for some reason this has not been seen for years.

Two other performances of note are Keenan Wynn as former gunfighter turned preacher who helps Sinatra find what he needs to stand up to Conrad and Dark. And then there is Conrad in what I believe was his career role on screen. He's a villain of incredible malevolence, pure evil incarnate walking and talking on the silver screen.

However what I like about Johnny Concho is the climax an unforgettable one where Conrad and Dark are dealt with. Let's just say I believe Johnny Concho was MGM's answer to High Noon and a primer for what you do when evil causes a break down in all law and order.

A terrific film with a lot to say.

[3102yuma · 10/10 · 22 November 2004]

I was lucky enough to get to see this film many years ago in England. I've seen hundreds of films since,but I've never forgotten this one.Although Sinatra was playing a not very endearing character,he was excellent in the role.A lot of people seem to think that he did'nt really come into his own until his role in "From Here To Eternity" but in my opinion he was magnificent in Concho.The other role that sticks in my mind is that of William Conrad.I'd never see or heard of him before this film. Conrad plays a terrific part in this film.I remember his deep and gravelly voice and he uses it beautifully to enhance the few words he speaks with a menace that sets the tone of his character.Also I remember the music, that both introduces Conrad and and seems to surround him whenever he appears.An excellent film and my only disappointment was that I never ever got the chance to see it again. It seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. I see in the titles that it says that the film is in black and white but when I saw it was indeed in full color, I remember Sinatra's blue shirt.

Impressive performances,memorable story

[wminneman · 8/10 · 29 May 2007]

I also saw this upon its release in '56, and have been struck since then with its final scene. If this is an answer to 'High Noon,' then it's an apt and apposite response. The notion that, as this string is headed, "The town comes together" is a much stronger message than the lonely personal heroism of 'High Noon.' In this theme, 'Concho' is a phenomenal precursor of one my other all-time favorites, 'The Magnificent Seven.' Both Sinatra and Conrad give impressive and convincing performances, especially Sinatra's transformation from bullying kid brother to liberating town savior. I can only hope that at some point all the friends and family on whom over the years I've inflicted my affection for this movie will have the opportunity to experience it for themselves.

Suspenseful and thoughtful

[HotToastyRag · 8/10 · 13 September 2017]

This is the perfect movie to watch if you don't like Frank Sinatra. I know, how many people don't like him, but I'm sure there's a few out there. My brother, for one. In Johnny Concho, Frankie plays the title character in his first western. He's catered to, allowed to buy and own things he doesn't pay for, and cheats at cards while everyone always looks the other way. Why? Because his brother is the feared gunfighter Red Concho, and everyone in town knows if they cross Johnny, Red will kill them. When Red is killed by a rival, suddenly Johnny is no longer feared, respected, or even tolerated. The entire town turns against him, including his girl, and when his brother's murderer challenges him to a duel, he can either face his death or run out of town. What will he do?

I really like this movie, and the most interesting aspect is that besides the sets and costumes, it doesn't really feel like a western. It doesn't focus on horses, ranches, brothels, or cowboys. The power struggle and the dynamic of an entire town finally free to rear up against one man is very effectively captured by Don McGuire, in his directorial debut. Nelson Riddle's theme is compassionate and lonely, echoing how the audience feels about the story. Frank Sinatra gives a great against-type performance as a partial villain, struggling with the decision to be brave and die or be a coward and live.

If you like internally driven westerns, or if you appreciate Frank Sinatra's acting career just as much or more than his singing career, rent Johnny Concho. It'll keep you on the edge of your seat!

It stars Frank Sinatra, so of course I was going to watch it!

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 11 October 2020]

I love nearly every Frank Sinatra film I have seen...though, oddly, I'm not a particular fan of him or his music. But after seeing him in so many terrific movies, I couldn't help but look for the rest...the ones forgotten over time.

When the story begins, everyone in town is afraid of Johnny Concho (Sinatra). He's a punk and his nasty gunslinging brother has given Johnny a lot of confidence...so much so that he pretty much does as he pleases. If he plays cards, everyone lets him win. If he wants to buy something, he takes it and never pays for it. He's definitely someone who is easy to hate...and the entire town hates and fears him. However, one day a gang of three gunman arrive in town...and announce to everyone that they just killed Johnny's brother! Then, the leader (William Conrad) announces that the town is his...and if Johnny stays, he should prepare to die!

What happens next is great. The tough swaggering Johnny is suddenly exposed as a coward...a man who is more afraid to die than stand up to these killers. And so he slinks out of town, as the gang gave him 24 hours to leave or else! Before he leaves, Johnny begs folks to help him stand up to these guys...and no one is willing, as they are thrilled to no longer be under the Concho's thumb. What's next? Well, stay tuned and see...and be prepared for a very exciting picture.

During the 1920s through the 1950s, Hollywood must have made half a billion westerns....and 95% of them had one of about half a dozen plots. To say that there is a strong sameness about them all is fair. But fortunately for "Johnny Concho", the film is among the 5% of wholly original, and therefore compelling westerns. It's exciting, difficult to predict and offers some great opportunities for fine actors like Sinatra as well as Keenan Wynn, WIlliam Conrad and Wallace Ford to show their skills. Overall, a wonderful western...and one of the better ones you can find.

Just as I remembered

[jjwolverine · 8/10 · 15 December 2023]

I saw this movie in 1956 when I was eight. I liked the story a lot: the coward who relied on his brother, and then had decide to either stand on his own two feet or tuck tail and run off. I really enjoyed the ending, and at eight years old, found no flaw in the film. I've wanted to see it again, but hadn't found it anywhere. I did another search and found it on Dailymotion today and just now finished watching it again. The amazing thing is that after seeing it once 67 years ago, the film is just as I remembered it.

I suppose it is a bit hard to believe that a town would give things to Concho out of fear for his non-resident brother, but I also think it's believable that people didn't want to have the brother show up and have Frank start pointing fingers. I especially liked the way the town pitched in to help after Concho made his decision on how to deal with the William Conrad character.

I'm not a film critic, but I thought the acting very good. I consider a cast of Frank Sinatra, Phyllis Kirk, William Conrad, Willis Bouchey, Keenan Wynn, Leo Gordon, Claude Akins, and Strother Martin (bit part) pretty good for a 1956 B&W Western.