Gun Street (1961) User Reviews

You should have hanged him when you had the chance!

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 10 February 2008]

**SPOILERS** Slow moving but still interesting western that has the local Sheriff Morton besieged on all sides for the crimes committed by an old schoolmate of his escaped bank robber Gary Wells.

Sheriff Morton who took Wells into custody after a failed bank robbery attempt some six years ago couldn't get the local jury to convict him of murder in the shooting death of a deputy sheriff. Wells getting off with only a life sentence, and not being sentenced to be hung, was because the gun used to kill the lawman belonged to Wells' partner, who was killed in the shootout, Courtland Brady. Now with Wells on the loose and determined to take revenge against Sheriff Morton and the people in town who sent him away for life all hell breaks loose with Sheriff Morton getting the wost of it.

A poor man's version of "High Noon" the movie "Gun Street" has a mostly uninformed citizenry, unlike the totally gutless one in "High Noon", blaming the innocent Sheriff Morton for Wells, with him not being given the death penalty, being able to escape and threaten them and their loved one's. And in the case of Dr. & Mrs Knudsan, Wells former wife, even their pets!

Morton and his deputy Sam Freed are also hand-strung with the fact that the town-folks are so terrified of Wells that they would rather let them, Morton & Freed, do all the work in both tracking and ,if possible ,gunning the extremely dangerous Wells down. You can see the both frustration and outrage in Sheriff Morton's face in having to be the whipping boy for all the mistakes that the ungrateful and absent-minded townspeople did, in finding Wells innocent of murder, in now having Wells breath down their necks.

In the end Sheriff Morton finally got the townspeople to get off their behinds and out of their locked homes to give him a hand in both tracking down and arresting, if at all possible, Gary Wells. Keeping up his killing spree Wells not only murdered both a local miner and town snitch, who turned him into Sheriff Morton, Jeff Baxley but slit the throat of Dr. Kundsan pet dog!***SPOILER ALERT*** Trapped with no place to go Wells suffering for a fatal gunshot wound in his escape from prison slowly bled to death in the high country as Sheriff Morton Deputy Freeman and a posse of some 20 men were combing the area looking for him.

You can say in the end Gary Wells did in fact not only escape from prison but justice as well. It was Sheriff Morton who did the right thing in walking away from the thankless job that he had for some twenty years. Being blamed for something he had nothing to do with in Wells escaping the hangman's noose, in the towns jury finding him innocent of murder, Morton retired as sheriff of the county giving his badge to his deputy Sam Freed. This unlike Gary Cooper throwing his badge away at the end of the movie "High Noon".

Kinda slow, but still interesting story

[rooster_davis · 6/10 · 2 March 2008]

Okay, it's a low budget movie. A small number of characters and not a huge amount of action do not require a big budget, and some Westerns come through despite not being big buck productions. I think this one qualifies. Another commenter suggested comparisons between this film and High Noon and I think that's valid, except in this case, instead of the sheriff trying to find help against a band of bad guys, it's the townspeople (who chose not to hang him) who keep coming to him for protection or to demand he catch the escaped killer. What I enjoy in this movie is the bitterness of the sheriff, who wanted the bad guy hung six years earlier when he was convicted of a crime; however he was a 'local boy' and the town couldn't bring itself to hang him. Now he's back to kill again and the sheriff is not pleased that once more he has to deal with this guy. The mayor comes to the sheriff's office and says 'That guy needs to be caught!' - and the sheriff says 'You're right - here you go, you catch him' and hands him a shotgun and walks out. Or the guy who is begging for protection; the sheriff hands him a gun belt with a holstered revolver and says 'Help yourself'. The sheriff is peeved at the mayor and the townspeople, with good reason, and it comes through from the start of the film.

Okay, this is not of the caliber of High Noon. On the other hand, there was a film called High Noon Part 2, The Return of Will Kane, which was a complete travesty, an annoying, heinously bad film with big names and a much bigger budget, with a story that had virtually nothing to do with High Noon other than to cash in on the name of the original movie. I think this film is better. Though it makes no claim or reference to High Noon, it certainly carries a somewhat parallel plot line of the sheriff having to deal with a bad guy while the town is of no help. At least the story is interesting enough to hold your attention, and the movie is not overly long, not much over an hour. There are many worse low budget flicks than Gun Street.

The Shaggy Dog

[boblipton · 5/10 · 31 January 2024]

The horse-rustling, thieving, murdering Welles has escaped from prison, and is heading back to town to seek revenge on a lot of people: on his wife, Jean Willes, who divorced him and married John Pickard, who adopted her boy, telling him his father was dead; on Herb Armstrong, whose testimony convicted him; and on everyone else in town. The mayor wants sheriff James Brown to track Welles down and kill him. Brown is not anxious to do so. He's newly in love and thinking of heading to California. If the town wanted Welles dead, why didn't the jury order him hanged? So everyone is antsy as Welles approaches with his proposed reign of terror.

Director Edward L. Cahn's last western -- he had been in charge of a fair number of them among his more than 120 movies -- suffers from its attempt to have an O. Henry sort of snapper ending, resulting in the whole thing playing like a shaggy dog story. It's efficiently directed, which in many ways was the source of Cahn's failure to ever turn out a great movie. Coming into directing from editing, he showed an ability to "cut in the camera", running a shoot that took less time than other, more nominally creative directors did. This meant he could turn out a feature cheap and fast, which is why he averaged four a year for 30 years, turning out what was in the script according to the abilities of his crew. It's hard o be great on that schedule, and his ability to turn out a decent movie on that schedule kept him working steadily through his death in 1963 at the age of 64.

From "Harvard Productions", No Less

[dougdoepke · 11 February 2008]

Plays more like one of those forgettable episodes in a TV Western series of the day. There are a few imaginative touches, but unfortunately they're left to the end. A convict with a confusingly complicated past has escaped prison and now the sheriff (James Brown) has to bring him in. But that proves difficult since the convict knows the territory better than anyone else and has a helpful sister.

You've got to hand it to the producers who hired the slightly paunchy, slightly over-age Brown for the central role. He's hardly a romantic figure, but that does make sense at the end. Likely that's also why the unnecessary role of the young deputy was inserted. The movie's main problem is too much talk for too many actors with too little ability (with notable exceptions, like Jean Willes and John Pickard), along with too many clichés about cowardly townspeople-- think High Noon.

The sometimes muddled script doesn't help either, (e.g. how does the sheriff know about the bank withdrawal). Then there's the "sweep" of the territory by a posse of about a half-dozen men. Spread out, they have about as much chance of catching the convict as a broom does of catching a mouse in a football stadium. It just doesn't pass the laugh test.

The only possible venue for a cheapie like this was a drive-in somewhere in the boondocks on a rainy night. So why did I watch it. Probably because I was one of the beer-swillers at that drive-in.

Modest, Low-Budget Oater

[zardoz-13 · 3/10 · 20 June 2012]

"Five Guns to Tombstone" director Edward L. Cahn and "Gun the Man Down" scenarist Sam Feedle had above-average narrative material to work with in "Gun Street." Unfortunately, neither Cahn nor Feedle are able to defy the bare bones budget that thwarted them from making something out of an interesting idea. "Gun Street" is a turn-of-the-century western that plays like "High Noon" but in reverse. A homicidal convicted bank robber kills a guard when he escapes from prison. He runs the guard down with a stolen wagon, but he received a wound for his trouble. The villain, Frank Bogan (Warren J. Kemmerling of "Framed"), plans on heading back to his home town to see his son. He also has a sister, too. When Sheriff Chuck Cochrane (James Brown of "Air Force") learns about Bogan's prison break, he informs Bogan's former wife (Peggy Stewart of "Son of Zorro") about the breakout. Bogan's ex-wife has remarried since he went to jail to a local sawbones, Dr. Knudson (John Picard of "Chism"), and Knudson has adopted their son.

Originally, Bogan could have been sentenced to hang for the robbery. The citizenry, however, decided that life in prison would be sufficient. Boy, were these people deluded. Everybody knew that the jury had made a mistake, especially Sheriff Morton Naturally, the jurors are justifiably frightened and upset at the prospect of Bogan's imminent return. According to Morton, they refused to hang Bogan because they couldn't stand the idea of killing a fellow who had grown up around them all those years. They harass their town lawman about the predicament, particularly the mayor. Morton is fed up and bitter about this turn of events. He wants to quit, but he decides to stick around long enough to arrest Bogan. Meanwhile, after breaking out of prison, Bogan murders a miner, appropriates his apparel, a horse, and rides for town. Morton learns from his faithful deputy that Bogan's daughter (Sandra Stone of "A Bullet for Joey") has withdrawn $500 from her husband's bank account to help her brother. Pat's husband is livid with rage when he find out what she has done. He takes her into another room, and the sounds of slapping ensue. Sheriff Morton restrains his deputy Sam from interfering, but this doesn't stop Morton from bringing in Bogan. He calls for every man with a gun and a horse to form a posse, including one gunman that he had jail for not sharing information about Bogan's whereabouts. It seems that our villain is still bleeding from a wound that he received during the jailbreak. Nevertheless, he poisons Dr. Knudson's dog and later kills the man, Jeff Baxley (Herb Armstrong), who collected the reward on Bogan from the robbery. Eventually, our heroes track Bogan down, but find him dead. Morton takes off his badge and gives it to his deputy. "Gun Street" is at best a drive-in feature on a tiny budget. For example, we never get to see what the villain looks like here. Since Cahn and Feedle never show us the villain, "Gun Street" lacks dramatic impact. The most jarring thing about this modest oater is the appearance of old wall model telephones. The performances are more than adequate with most of the cast looking past their prime. The biggest letdown about this otherwise well-produced oater is the ending. Morton organizes two posses to close in on Bogan. In the end, however, they find Bogan dead. Talk about anti-climax! At least, scenarist Sam Feedle could had Bogan shoot it out with Morton, because otherwise there is no catharsis.

Edward finally can

[searchanddestroy-1 · 2 December 2022]

A rather good B western, where Edward L Cahn seems to have more ambition than usual, though the story is not that exciting. But the story telling is quite well built, acted, everything seems smooth. There is no obvious bad guy here and that brings a new point of view, rather rare in a grade Z western, or a more than usual elaborate western. I don't know any of the actors and that enhances the interest to watch this small but interesting gem. Maybe not a golden gem, with daring camera work, exciting crazy angles in the Joseph Lewis mode, but I don't ask so much from Edward (who finally can) Cahn , some equivalent of Sam Newfield in the B towards Z movie industry.