Good Day for a Hanging (1959)

You won't be disappointed!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The western "Good Day for a Hanging" isn't one of the better westerns to come out of the 1950s, but western fans should find it an okay viewing provided they are prepared for some flaws, particularly some familiar elements. The biggest problem with the movie is that the story for the most part feels straight out of a episode of a western television show from the same period. Yes, there's color and better production values, and it runs longer than an hour, but until near the end this story has echoes of TV westerns.I will admit that towards the end of the movie, there are some interesting and unpredictable elements that make the story end on an unexpected note. And while the movie up to that point may be predictable at times, it all the same remains buoyant. The plot thread of the townspeople slowly losing their taste for the upcoming hanging is interesting. Fred MacMurray does make a good lead, possessing a likability even when events start to turn against his character... and change his character. And Robert Vaughn does well as the accused prisoner, showing a sympathetic side while simultaneously suggesting he might be hiding something... or is he? Not a perfect western, as I earlier pointed out, but it is serviceable.

As a kid I saw Fred MacMurray in a bunch of films like "The Absent Minded Professor", "The Shaggy Dog" and of course his TV series "My Three Sons". So when I catch him in a Western every now and then it just seems hard to picture him as some rugged plainsman shooting it out with villains in the Old West. Yet he generally acquits himself reasonably well as he does here, a testament to his range as an actor in a role obviously against stereotype. Speaking of which, MacMurray offers up one of the better barroom brawls you'll see in a Fifties Western, going up against Edmon Ryan portraying defense attorney Selby. Slick move by the lawyer with the quick sucker punch, just as I expected. The story however, is another story. I'm not thoroughly convinced (especially after having seen a few hundred Westerns), that the good people of Springdale would have been so fickle as to turn on their newly appointed Marshal Cutler (MacMurray) for actually doing his job. Reasonable doubt never held much sway in films involving pioneer justice, and the idea that a slick lawyer might have changed a few opinions wasn't enough to save Eddie Campbell's (Robert Vaughn) hide here either. The added element of the marshal's daughter (Joan Blackman) having a thing for the bad guy was an interesting concept here as well, but it's not like it hadn't been done before.There was a puzzling element in the script for me, considering how the writers were seemingly making the liberal case against capital punishment. The idea of a fence around the gallows was deemed necessary to prevent gawkers, as public execution was coming to be seen as cruel and unusual punishment. Yet nothing prevented Campbell from watching the carpenters build the scaffold that he was going to die on - how cruel was that? I just didn't get it.Before this was over, you just knew that somehow, Cutler and his daughter would have to arrive at some reconciliation over her relationship with the young outlaw. That's done with Eddie's jailbreak setting up the finale, and I just knew I would groan if Eddie wound up accidentally hanging himself as he climbed up the gallows during the shootout between his gang and the town folk. That actually happened in some B Western I can't remember the title of right now, but when I do I'll get back to you on it. You have to wonder sometimes how far a picture will go to stretch credibility. Here they only stretched it a little bit.Addendum***9-22-2016*** OK, I found the title I was referencing in the last paragraph in which an outlaw inadvertently falls into a noose and hangs himself. It was the 1968 spaghetti Western "This Man Can't Die' starring Guy Madison. You can look it up on IMDb as "Long Days of Hate" or by it's Italian title, "I lunghi giorni dell'odio".

"A Good Day for a Hanging" (GDH) shows us once again that there is a finite number of original plots that can be turned into a film story.The similarities of GDH to the classic "High Noon" are substantial. Gary Cooper's name is Marshall Will Kane in "High Noon" while Emile Meyer's name in GDH is Marshall Hiram Cain. Coincidence? I think not! The Fred MacMurray character (Ben Cutler) is about to be married (as was the Cooper character); upon the death of Marshall Cain in GDH, Cutler reluctantly becomes the new Marshall; the MacMurray/Cooper characters find out just how lonely and isolated it is to be an honorable law enforcer in a small Western town; both prospective wives want to break off the impending marriage because they perceive a conflict between the lawman's doing his duty and the peace and stability of married life; both present the unwanted intrusion of outlaws into the life of the quiet town; both involve the eventual rejection of the lawman and his efforts to uphold the law by the town-folks who put him into his position in the first place; both have the requisite climactic shootout with the outlaws which our hero survives; both end up in reconciliation between the MacMurray/Cooper characters and the town-folks as well as the prospective wives; and both validate the need for law and order to maintain civilization in the Old West.MacMurray seems to have fashioned his lawman character as though he IS Cooper---only in color this time and with a less well-known cast of supporting players. And instead of the ticking down time feature of "High Noon", we are given the slow construction of a gallows for the jailed killer as GDH's plot hook----a structure that we know will never be used-----except in the telegraphed ironic ending."High Noon" is good enough in its own right to deserve a respectable knock off-----which GDH is. If imitation is the greatest form of flattery, the creators of "High Noon" should have been mighty pleased with GDH.But there are differences between the two films. MacMurray was never in the same acting league as Cooper, and Margaret Hayes could never be mistaken for Grace Kelly. Ian MacDonald (Frank Miller) is a far more menacing villain in "High Noon" than the rather young Robert Vaughn is in GDH.For those of you who enjoy the Western genre and are fans of "High Noon", GDH is well worth seeing just to become familiar with an obscure copycat version of a true classic.

Of course this is a 1950s period piece that says more about that time period than it does about the 19th Century, but we need to remember that most films, particularly Westerns, seemed to reflect the exact time period they were made. This is nothing new, and it probably will not change any time in the future.What audiences forget is that Fred MacMurray was GREAT in serious roles. Because we saw him on TV and Disney movies, we became used to the dimwitted, milquetoast type of character and I, at least could not understand why he was so respected as an actor. But, he had a long illustrious career long before the 1960s, and that career had mostly been of him as a leading man in Westerns. In fact, MacMurray was disappointed that all he ever got cast in was serious roles, and he got tired of it.In this movie, his acting is so "underdone", that it is flawless. I have a great deal of respect for him, and wish he had made even more serious movies later in his life.