A Man Alone (1955)

Fantastic!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Ray Milland directed a film himself for the first time with this, and not a bad effort too. He had a rather up and down career as an actor and continued in the same vein as director.Gunfighter Milland is lost and on foot in the desert, stumbles across a stagecoach with its occupants brutally murdered and as it transpired, robbed. He makes it to the nearest town, is shot at by a deputy sheriff who should really have stuck to driving trains, then witnesses and gets accused of a cold-blooded murder, goes on the run and holes up in a young lady's house whose sheriff father is quarantined with yellow fever. Should he stay or should he go? With Love potentially in the air you know the answer to that. So, now with plenty of time for moralistic asides and romance he tries lamely to clear his name. It's sound and simple fare expertly done and an engrossing oater which also manages to lightly analyse duty (or dooty as Ward Bond might say), justice, hypocrisy and redemption. Poor old Raymond Burr got saddled once again with the deranged baddies part. The Gun is usually the final judge and jury in these kind of Westerns, however not so here - and it ends like a TV episode of Bonanza with the suddenly contented people rolling by like clouds.Refreshingly any blurred lines that are introduced are not allowed; this film is straightforward in every department with all the generally accepted correct morality boxes ticked by the end and well worth watching because of that.

First time director Ray Milland must have scored a success with this psychological Western typical of the 1950s, as he went on to both direct and star in four more features- 1956's "Lisbon," 1958's "The Safecracker," 1962's "Panic in Year Zero!" and 1967's "Hostile Witness." In the role of Wesley Steele, a gunman of ill repute, having to kill simply to survive, director Milland begins the film with nearly a half hour without (much) dialogue. Steele discovers a massacred stagecoach, five people shot dead (including a little girl), all the money gone. He soon finds himself in a most unfriendly town, where the hapless deputy (Alan Hale Jr.) prefers to shoot first and ask questions later; incredibly, the safest place for Steele to hide from a possible lynching turns out to be the Sheriff's quarantined home, due to his being bedridden with yellow fever. Lovely Mary Murphy, Marlon Brando's leading lady in "The Wild One," is entrusted with the most difficult role, the Sheriff's daughter, who naturally falls for the much older Steele, and capably manages the feat of growing up from 'daddy's little girl' to feisty heroine, inspiring Wes to return to clear his name, and redeeming her own father (Ward Bond), who had fallen under the crooked influence of town banker and criminal mastermind Raymond Burr. You can't go wrong with a supporting cast that includes Lee Van Cleef, Douglas Spencer, Thomas Browne Henry, and Arthur Space. Unfortunately for Mary Murphy, her screen career wound down all too quickly, though television kept her busy for another two decades. Horror/sci fi buffs remember her turns in 1951's "When Worlds Collide," 1954's "The Mad Magician," and 1957's "The Electronic Monster."

I was surprised to see that Ray Milland not only starred in this western, he directed it! The fact that a British man would star in an American western, however, did not surprise me. After all, if a Tasmanian (Errol Flynn) could star in one--why not Milland--especially since his Welsh accent was pretty faint. Plus, since the US is a country of immigrants, there MUST have been a few Brits in the Old West. However, I am sure none of them had a name like 'Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones' (Milland's actual given name)! "A Man Alone" is helped along by having a couple really good heavies--Raymond Burr (a familiar heavy of the 50s until he struck gold playing Perry Mason) and a young Lee Van Cleef (who was always menacing). These two automatically improves the movie from the onset. Ward Bond, a wonderful character actor is on hand to play the sick Sheriff. Plus, while he's not especially well-known today, Milland was a dandy actor (at least until his later years when, like Bette Davis, he would accept ANY part--and a few were pretty bad). Here he's still in his prime--a good, solid leading man--not the macho or romantic type--just a good everyman actor--and a far cry from his sophisticated image of the 1930s.This film starts off very sad. Milland is riding his horse in the middle of the American desert when he comes upon a party from a stage coach--and all of them, including the children, have been murdered. When Milland comes into town, the Deputy Sheriff sneaks up on him--Milland turns and shoots (wounding him). Now the town thinks HE was responsible for the massacre--not realizing some of the town's 'upstanding citizens' were the guilty parties. Milland discovers this but no one believes him. It's up to Milland to clear himself and ferret out the guilty parties by the end of the film.There is a major cliché that hinders the film from being one of the best westerns of the day. When Milland hides out, he just happens to hide out in the home of the Sheriff. While the Sheriff is delirious with fever, there is his pretty daughter in the home as well. When she discovers him and realized everyone is looking for him, she shelters him from the posse!!! Why would a woman do this--particularly the Sheriff's daughter?! This makes no sense--and I wish they'd not relied on such a phony plot device as this. And, when she inexplicably falls in love with him, it seems even more phony.Another cliché comes into play later in the film when Milland has his showdown with the leader of the murders (Burr). Burr refuses to draw his gun, so Milland throws away his advantage and his a fist fight! First, in a fight I am sure that the big and burly Burr would have won. Second, any SANE man would have shot out Burr's kneecaps or put a bullet in his brain--that's the only 'fair fight' that really took place in the West. The fist fight cliché is just sloppy writing.However, the film is entertaining and it does take a few nice detours apart from the clichés. As a result of good acting and part of the writing being good (only part), it is very watchable. Just don't expect a lot and you'll be happy with the results.By the way, Alan Hale is listed in the credits. This is actually Alan Hale, Jr. ('Skipper' from "Gilligan's Island")--not his famous character actor father (who was usually billed as 'Alan Hale').

Ray Milland's early career was in mostly light romantic fluff but he did have Oscar success in The Lost Weekend. He and Ginger Rogers were fun in The Major And The Minor. He was properly creepy in Dial M For Murder. His later years were lost in terrible monster flicks and bit parts. In the midst of the lousy movies, he did make a Western that stood out. This one. He was actually pretty good in it and as his directorial debut it wasn't bad either. It's a shame that the director's best assets weren't better utilized. He kept one of my very favorite character actors in bed for most of the movie (Ward Bond) and Raymond Burr isn't on screen long enough for my liking. This role was one of many villains that Burr so splendidly played for many years until we see him as Perry Mason in 1957. Another great bad guy that gets some close-ups is Lee Van Cleef. In the 60's and 70's, we'll see lots of him in many Leone or Gemma "spaghetti" Westerns. His face says so much without saying a word.....an absolute necessity when you don't speak Italian. I guess that's why Eastwood did so well in spaghetti Westerns...he wasn't much of an actor back then. In this movie, Ray Milland plays an aging gunfighter (he's on foot) who comes upon the murdered victims of a stagecoach holdup. He rides one of the the stagecoach horses into town to get help. The nervous deputy (a younger Alan Hale, Jr) is summoned (after seeing Milland ride in on the stagecoach horse) and shoots at Milland as he dismounts. Milland shoots back and wounds the deputy. Thereafter, they hunt for him high and low and block all exits out of town. Milland unknowingly takes refuge in the sick sheriff's home (under quarantine) where his daughter is nursing him back to health. The scenes between Milland and the sheriff's daughter are well done. The outcome is not decided until the final minutes of the movie. It's a good movie for Ray Milland fans and if you like good bad guys and good character actors...this is a good one for you, too.