Tension at Table Rock (1956)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Fugitive gunslinger is torn between fleeing a town or staying to help.The obvious comparison is Shane (1953). But whereas the result there rises to mythic heights, here the results are little more than pedestrian, and I'm not sure why. Certainly, director Warren's erratic pacing doesn't help—the dialog scenes, especially with Malone, bring things to a slumping stop. For a Western, that's deadly. Then too, wardrobe gussies up Malone (a fine actress, nonetheless) like it's Oscar night on the frontier, befitting her star-status, I guess. I really like the first half, especially DeSantis's hapless station agent. He brings a strong hint of soul to the part, something Egan, in the lead part, needs in order to broaden Tancred's conflicted character. Unfortunately, Egan never gets beyond a single stony expression (contrast that with Ladd's nicely nuanced Shane). Still, that opening is a real grabber. Too bad, we lose that fine villain Paul Richards (Sam) so early in the movie. Speaking of expert bad guys, the 90-minutes is filled with them, from the slippery Edward Andrews to the commanding John Dehner to the plain mean James Anderson, and even Star Trek's DeForrest Kelley makes a charming gunslinger. And that's along with affecting turns from Cameron Mitchell and the wonderful little Billy Chapin.The trouble is that once the focus comes to town, events lose the edge they've had. Nor does it help that the town is an obvious studio backlot (contrast that with Shane's desolate mudhole of a town). Anyway, there're a number of nice touches (Dickinson's treacherous Cathy, for one), but unfortunately these can't overcome the limitations of budget and pacing, resulting generally in an interesting but undistinguished 90-minutes.

This superb '50s western is what I term a "minor masterpiece". By that I do not mean that it is inferior, rather that its "B" status will inevitably always relegate it to side discussions when the "big" westerns are brought up. But a very convincing argument can be made that this, and many other '50s "B" westerns-including in my view almost all of the Audie Murphy ones-are the absolute pinnacle of the genre.Other reviewers have given good accounts of the plot so I will instead mention: the marvellous cast (DeForrest Kelly was underused as a westerner-marvel at his performance); the tension that I think is due to the modest running time and the quick, simple scenes that just flow so naturally; great, bright colour (I loathe the dark modern movies); a second-to-none score from an age when there were great film composers; all the essential elements are here-the boy, the tortured hero, believable domestic tensions, the baddies-you just care about these characters.Every time this appears on British TV I seem to watch it afresh and discover more subtleties.Minor masterpieces are not that much more common than major ones. Do not miss this movie.

I was surprised how good this movie turned out to be. Talk about a Western for Western-lovers - there's the guy (Wes Tancred played by Richard Egan) who's good with a gun, a cattle drive where the cowboys are going to overrun and terrorize a town, the sheriff is weak and his wife falls for Tancred. There are a lot of smaller stories that influence the action. Billy Chapin plays a boy named Jody whose father is killed by outlaws; Tancred kills the outlaws and takes the boy to live with his uncle and aunt (the sheriff and his wife). The local newspaper's editor is at odds with the sheriff, knowing he is weak and is afraid to stand up to bad guys.The basic plot is of someone, Tancred, who is trying to escape his past and start over, but things keep making it hard for him to do that. A popular folk song claims that he killed his best friend by shooting him in the back, so under his actual name he is a reviled man. He changes his name and ends up taking part in the town's struggles against the bad guy cowboys.This movie has plenty of action; it doesn't just sit there and talk you to death. Between the guns and horses and fights and shooting and saloon and all, it's got to be called a classic Western, no doubt.The casting is good though I was surprised at how many people I hadn't really seen in many Westerns; meanwhile there was not a Lee Van Cleef or a Denver Pyle or a Jack Elam or a Paul Fix to be seen. Doesn't matter much though, the cast did a very good job. The movie is in color though the quality of the color is uneven from scene to scene.I enjoyed this movie more than I expected to, and it's surely worth the watching for anyone who likes Westerns.

Good western featuring a reticent gunslinger and a lawman who has lost his nerve who must go up against a group of thugs who want to let off steam in their town. Egan was well cast as the gunman who was short on talk and long on slinging lead when the chips were down.