Man Hunt (1936)
A bored small-town teacher gets mixed up with an escaped bank robber.
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Good movie but grossly overrated
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
When vicious bank robber Ricardo Cortez is spotted in tiny Coasterville, a man hunt ensues, offering important opportunities for local reporter William Gargan, old-timer Chic Sales and fired schoolmarm Marguerite ChurchillThis so-so Warner B plays to its principals' strengths, particularly Ricardo Cortez, who gives a nicely varied performance. However, while the production values are fine, The message that big town folks are phony and small town people know how to get the job done, gets particularly annoying whenever Sales is doing his old coot act. DP Joseph Ruttenberg offers his usual impeccable lighting, operating with a low key instead of his usual glossy look. However the story wears thin soon enough with a story that had been done before and with little to offer in the way of individual insight.
Jane Carpenter (Marguerite Churchill) plays a very young, foolish and naive school teacher. She likes to regale her students with romantic notions of the bandits of the old west--although the reality is that these folks were scum of the worst sort. Not surprisingly, some of the folks in the community are less than thrilled by this.Later, there is a manhunt for Kingman (Ricardo Cortez)--a notorious bank robber. When he hides out at the teacher's home, her notions of romance are sorely tried! She helps him at first though she soon discovers he's not quite the dashing character she's talked about in school. Believe it or not, this crook and his gang are actually bad!!! Can this idiot somehow come out of this unscathed? Well considering the good guys want to HELP the bank (which Kingman is about to rob) by starting a bank panic, I would seriously doubt that!Overall, this is a mildly interesting B movie with a decent anti- gangster theme. Chic Sale, as he often is in films, overacts awfully while doing his old man routine (he was only 51 but played a man considerably older in films).