Five Guns West (1955)

Pretty Good

Overrated and overhyped

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

'Five Guns West' is legendary Roger Corman's debut as director, although he had produced couple of movies before. The film was shot in nine days on $60.000 budget. It shows that the film was made by first time director with being little uneven at places, but it is still entertaining piece.Turing the Civil war, South desperately is in the need of men, so Confederate States gives pardon to five hard criminals and sending them behind enemy lines to capture the traitor and bring back the stolen gold. Sending criminals to do official government business is always interesting premise and the film doesn't disappoint at that department. The characters are interesting, and quite well developed (this is probably due to the low budget - not enough action, but plenty of interesting interactions between characters), so even with the low amount of shooting, the film is entertaining enough to keep the viewer interested - with five hardened criminals and stolen gold in the game, it can't be any other way.Quite well written screenplay, good acting, and filmed in Pathe color, 'Five Guns West' doesn't feel much like rushed low budget independent production. Nothing spectacular, but should interest hardcore Corman (and Western) fans enough.

I'm surprised that the rating for FGW is only 4.3, as I thought it compared reasonably well with other Westerns of the period.The implausibility of five villains being pardoned and then being trusted to fulfil their undertaking to capture the absconding traitor and gold and return both to the Confederacy has already been remarked on. Getting the date wrong (the officer mentioning "1867" when the Civil War is still being fought) was astonishing. And the villains don't look that villainous, despite their crimes.But the plot canters along well enough, the factional aligning and re- aligning of the five is interesting, and the final shoot-out quite original.But I do wonder how much better the film would have been with Randolph Scott starring, Budd Boetticher directing and a couple of real heavies (Jack Elam, Skip Homeier, say).

Done on a dental floss budget Five Guns West tells the story of the Confederate Army recruiting five outlaws and pardoning them from sentences of death to help recover several thousand dollars of gold bullion. It's kind of a different slant on the plot of the much bigger budgeted Virginia City. We learn that the Confederacy is much interested more in getting their traitorous agent back to stand trial as he has a lot of contacts to give the Union and pretty much blow up their spy system.The five recruited are Michael Connors, John Lund, Paul Birch, R. Wright Campbell, and Jonathan Haze and they're about what you would expect from outlaws. The mission is to intercept a stagecoach at a particular station that will be carrying the agent and the gold. That station is operated by Jack Ingram and his niece Dorothy Malone. Remember these guys are outlaws and haven't been with a woman in a while. As that line from Casablanca would read transfered here, Dorothy constitutes a second front all her own.There are a couple interesting twists in this film involving the characters and the film was Roger Corman's directorial debut. If Corman didn't have a penchant for other genres he might have made some more interesting westerns like Five Guns West.

As I watched this Roger Corman production, I could see that westerns were not his forte. While this is a very good film considering it's tiny budget, it's really not that great a film. However, for cinemaniacs like myself, it's still well worth seeing to see what Corman could do with only $60,000. And, in light of the money spent, it's a decent picture. How did he manage to do it with so little money? You get a couple B-list stars (John Lund and Dorothy Malone) and a bunch of unknowns (including Mike Connors well before be gained stardom). And, you use very simple sets--in this case, just a few western buildings.The plot is VERY reminiscent of the later film, "The Dirty Dozen"--but in this case it involves just five misfits who are given a choice--go on a mission for the Confederacy or have their sentences carried out immediately. The two youngest are clearly psychos, the gambler is a sociopath (Connors), there's a grizzled older man who is a bit of a cypher and a seemingly nice guy (Lund) who is quite out of place. Their job is to ambush a stagecoach carrying gold and use it to fund the South in the Civil War--but as the film progresses, it seems pretty obvious that several of them have no intention of giving up the gold. And, when they arrive at their destination, they find they are early and the two young sociopaths are mostly concerned with raping a lady at the stage office (Malone) and it's up to Lund to keep these creeps in check. What happens next? See the film.The acting is fair, though it was hard for me to see Lund as a heroic type. He just didn't have the macho persona you'd expect and I kept thinking of him as the greasy sharpie from the "My Friend Irma" films! But he was game and a professional. As for the rest, they were also decent. The film does NOT have the ultra-cheap look of Corman's more notorious horror films (like "Wasp Woman" or "Little Shop of Horrors") but it still isn't great by any means. Watchable and mildly interesting, that's about all I can say for it. But, considering I've seen tons of Corman's films as well as a recent biography/filmography of the guy, it was worth my time. As for you, it's at best a time-passer.A low point in the film is the guy running and yelling "I'll get 'em!" and getting shot. This scene made absolutely no sense whatsoever and seemed to just be an excuse to wipe out one of the baddies!