The Man Behind The Gun (1953)

Thanks for the memories!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Blistering performances.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I had to start this movie over twice because I realized I'd stopped paying attention, which should tell you something about the quality of storytelling here. Randolph Scott plays an undercover government agent investigating some Confederate sympathizers who want California to secede and become a rebel state. Routine western offers nothing original. It's not terrible, but it's so routine and bland that it hardly held my interest.

Set in southern California this western is considerably further west than most of the genre… although not much further west than many were filmed! The story opens in a stagecoach heading towards Los Angeles; on board are a school teacher, a senator, a bandit, a man we will soon learn is a deserter from the US Army and a wealthy land owner who is wants Southern California to break away from the rest of the state and become a new state where slavery is legal… this is in the 1850's several years before the civil war that was to abolish slavery throughout the United States. The bandit tries to rob the stage but fails and is handed over to the local army captain in Los Angeles. It looks like he can't be trusted though as the man escapes. This is where the deserter is identified as Major Callicut; a man wanted for killing a fellow officer in a duel. Shortly afterwards the senator is shot and killed by the leader of the secessionists. What follows has more twists than a corkscrew as we learn that little of what we have seen is quite what it seemed; Callicut is in fact on a mission to root out the secessionists who plan to take over the area's water supply to force the government to give in to their demands.This is a decent enough film with a solid performance from Randolph Scott as Callicut; there is sufficient action and even a few good laughs… mostly provided by Callicut's sergeant; at one point he is even disguised as a woman in a bonnet and dress! The problem is the story wasn't that believable… If the threat from secessionists was so serious surely the government would have sent more than one man and people were quick to believe him when he showed his ID; it hardly looked forgery proof! Another problem was the obvious use of back projection in many scenes; I know this was a common thing in films of the time but it seemed particularly obvious here. I will admit though that the twists weren't bad and I certainly didn't spot the main one; don't worry I won't spoil it here! The film is still worth watching if you are a fan of the western genre just don't expect anything too special.

Randolph Scott is Major Ransome Callicut, who goes undercover as a school teacher in 1850s California to hopefully thwart separatist plotting as secessionist fervour starts to boil over.The Man Behind The Gun is directed by Felix E. Feist and adapted to screenplay by John Twist from a story by Robert Buckner. It is shot in Technicolor by Bert Glennon (Wagon Master) out of Bell Ranch, Santa Susana, California. Joining Scott in the cast are Patrice Wymore, Dick Wesson, Philip Carey, Lina Romay & Alan Hale Jr.It's true enough that material such as this, well more the themes and basic story, deserves a better movie than what this ultimately is. Yet to shout down this film for not being a finely tuned politico piece is a touch harsh one feels. This is after all, a modestly budgeted Oater out of Warner Brothers that comes at a time when Randolph Scott was knocking out Oaters for both WB and Columbia at a rate of knots! Scott was three years away from starting a run of films with Budd Boetticher that would finally realise his talents, whilst simultaneously giving the serious Western fan some gems to shout about from the saloon rooftops. So where does The Man Behind The Gun sit in the pantheon of 50s Westerns? Well a better director than Felix Feist would have helped since the material called for someone interested in the more psychological aspects of the characters. The afore mentioned Boetticher is a given of course, while another of Scott's 50s directors, André De Toth, would have enjoyed the intrigue and underhand core for sure.Still, given its short running time, Feist does manage to craft an action packed movie that's led by Scott's protagonist playing it rugged, sneaky and tough to get the job in hand done. There's gun fights, whip-cracking, chases, explosions; and even pretty gals scrapping it out in a crash of chairs, tables and pottery. For an 82 minute movie it doesn't fall short as an action piece. If viewed on those terms it holds up very well, even if there's so much going on it can be hard to follow at times. There's even nice dashes of humour, none more so than with the entertaining turn from Wesson. Be it whipping off some saloon gal's dress or playing it in drag, his Sergeant 'Monk' Walker gives the piece a lift when it threatens to be bogged down by good guy-bad guy character turns that come and go all too frequently. Scott is as ever straight backed and as cool as a cucumber, while Hale Jr, Carey and Wymore each leave a favourable impression.Yes it could have been a deep and potent piece, but that it's not does not make it a bad film. It's a ripper of an action movie backed up by a couple of strong turns from Scott & Wesson, even if the film that surrounds them is just a little chaotic at times! 7/10

Supposed killer and Army deserter Randolph Scott heads to Los Angeles sometime before the Civil War. Posing as a schoolteacher who can't shoot straight, he gets knee-deep in some intrigue involving a group of separatists, the assassination of a US senator, and their attempts to split California into free and slave states.Costumes and sets are lavish and there's lots of great old-California atmosphere. However, The Man Behind The Gun is disappointingly routine. It's really too bad, because this is really one handsome production!The actors are game and some of their characters are quite colorful. The filmmakers should have pumped a little more action and suspense into the script, or trimmed the final product to about an hour.