Gunmen from Laredo (1959)

Touches You

The Worst Film Ever

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Well I've seen my share of bad Westerns like "Cry Blood, Apache" and "Dan Candy's Law", novelty Westerns like "Two Gun Man From Harlem" (all black cast) and "Terror of Tiny Town" (all midget cast), but this one is probably the most surreal and dumb one I've yet to come across. You know the film makers were pushing it when the only player in this movie that I recognized was character actor Don C. Harvey, and he didn't even show up till the second half.For starters, the first fifteen minutes of the picture managed an attack on a married couple heading to Laredo, the husband seeking revenge by shooting a brother of the murderer, his getting arrested for shooting the man in cold blood, and being found guilty by a jury the very next day! Talk about a whirlwind set-up, there was more than enough in the opening segment to fill out an entire picture if the writing were credible enough.But it gets better. Once he's incarcerated at the Unionville, New Mexico territorial prison, Gil Reardon (Robert Knapp) has another inmate file off his leg irons (very cleanly I might add), and then escapes with a couple other jailbirds. As the first two prisoners are shot off the ladder by a prison guard, Reardon makes his escape as the hapless guard tries to reload. On the run, he happens to come across an Apache Mescalero girl tied to a tree, who was kidnapped by a Chiricahua Indian named Delgados (X Brands). The Indian attacks Gil, they tussle, and in one of the phoniest finishes ever, the Chiricahua stabs himself when flipped against a rock by his opponent. By this time, Reardon and Rosita (Jana Davi) have worked up an appetite, and I'm not kidding when I say this, but she looks down and picks up a dead rabbit to cook up for dinner. That might not have been so bad, but it looked like rigormortis had already set in! So by now I'm rolling on the floor. Continuing on, Rosita's horse favors a bum leg, so Reardon has the Indian girl ride his horse, stating that he'll walk her horse to give him a rest. It's not less than ten seconds in movie time and he's back on the horse again! They better hurry though, because a major chisera is closing in, a devil wind that turns out to be a major sand storm. However if you examine the terrain on which they were traveling, it was grassy mountainous countryside, not a sand dune in sight. Not to worry though, in all this wilderness, Rosita knows exactly where to find a cave to seek shelter from the storm. Bob Dylan would have been proud.Eventually the posse trailing Reardon catches up with him and sends Rosita packing so they can bring him back to jail. In the meantime, the father of the Indian Reardon killed, Coloradas (Charles Horvath), has caught up to the runaways (you see, Rosita worked her way back), and Gil insults him to a death match challenge. This one's a beaut, with both men brandishing a tomahawk, Reardon flings his into the forehead of Coloradas for a TKO! I wish I were making this up, but who could write something like this?Well finally, with ten minutes left to go in the picture, Marshal Matt Crawford (Paul Birch) tells his prisoner he's got exactly ten minutes to get his revenge on villain Ben Keefer (Walter Coy) back in Laredo. Keefer and brother Jordan (Jered Barclay) enter the street to face Reardon, looking petrified by the way, while third brother Walt (Ron Hayes) posts lookout on a roof top to ambush Gil. In a remarkable scenario, three on one now, Reardon picks off Walt from the roof, shoots Jordan when he draws, and Ben, who dropped his own gun earlier, now tries to go for his dead brother's pistol! What do you think happened next?That's right, the Marshal let Gil and Rosita go!

Gunmen from Laredo is directed by Wallace MacDonald and written by Clark E. Reynolds. It stars Robert Knapp, Jana Davi, Walter Coy, Paul Birch and Don C. Harvey.Out to avenge the murder of his wife and friend, Gil Reardon (Knapp) hurries into Laredo to confront the culprits. Forced to draw on one of the thugs, Gil is set up for murder and sent to prison. Escaping, he meets up with a Mescalero woman who aids him on is journey through the wilderness. If they can survive the terrain and Indian attacks? Then Gil is heading back to Laredo to clear his name and get his revenge.Straight from the bottom rung of the "B" Western ladder, is this Columbia offering filmed in Columbia Color no less! It's a poor effort, a basic case of film makers stringing a number of scenes together to pad out a movie. The acting is poor, the set design around the town of Laredo is hardly convincing, while the location photography around Bronson Canyon is decidedly flat.However, I find myself in the unusual situation of having watched a bad Western yet feel the need to grudgingly admire it! MacDonald and Reynolds cram all they can into their picture. Shoot-outs, prison escape, chases, fist fights, sandstorm and a smouldering romance in waiting. The choreography isn't up to much, mind, but the sheer gusto and willingness to entertain is to be applauded.It's the sort of Oater that Dad can plonk the kids in front of the TV and know they will have fun and be occupied, while he sits in his armchair relaxing with a glass of wine. 4/10

A man comes back from prison to take revenge on the men who framed him. Along the way he picks up the phoniest-looking Indian "maiden" in recent memory (Lucille Ball dressed herself up as Pocahontas in an episode of "I Love Lucy" and looked more authentic than this girl does) which gets him mixed up in Indian troubles. A bunch of other stuff happens, none of it interesting and all of it badly done. The acting is amateurish, even though there are several solid character actors (Paul Birch, Don Harvey, Charles Horvath) present--a result of the almost non-existent direction of producer Wallace MacDonald. The "script" is an unstructured, meandering mess; it looks like MacDonald only shot every couple of pages of it instead of the whole thing, or maybe that's just the way it was written. The "action" scenes are laughable; grade-school kids playing Cowboys & Indians could have staged them better. I'm sure that not many of the few people who saw this thing knows how it ends; it's so maddeningly poor in all departments that I can't imagine anyone sticking around to find out. I sure didn't. Don't waste your time on this dog.

A band of bad men rustle a man's cattle and then frame him for the murder of their brother. He is sent to a New Mexico prison, but the walls couldn't hold him. Once he escapes, he heads for Laredo where the men who wronged him are. Extremely corny and badly acted story that was so phony I could barely watch it. Don't corral this sway backed nag.