The Saga of Hemp Brown (1958)
Ex-army sergeant Jed Givens and his gang rob an army payroll shipment led by Lt. Hemp Brown. Givens kills a civilian woman and all the soldiers, leaving Brown alive to face a military tribunal in which he is branded a coward, stripped of all insignia and drummed out of the army. Brown sets out to track down Givens in an effort to clear his name.
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Crappy film
Best movie of this year hands down!
Beautiful, moving film.
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
I swear while watching Rory Calhoun in the title role in The Saga Of Hemp Brown I could hear the faint echo of that famous theme from Branded. Rory is a cavalry officer who loses an army payroll, his whole patrol but him is killed and also killed was the wife of the commanding officer who was hitching a ride back to the post. For reasons I'm not clear on the leader of the outlaw gang John Larch wants Calhoun to live. So he sends Calhoun back to the fort tied to his horse and they give him the Jason McCord treatment. Dishonorable discharge because they can't prove he stole the payroll. But he's discharged for cowardice.Calhoun accuses Larch, but the army says Larch was killed in action a few years earlier. So Calhoun goes out looking for Larch.Calhoun wants Larch back alive, why I can't figure that since a corpse with a couple of fresh bullet holes would have certainly proved that Larch was not dead. That should have gotten Calhoun clear if not the army payroll returned.Definitely not one of Rory Calhoun's better westerns though John Larch as always is one mean and swaggering villain.
Can there have been any male actor in Hollywood to rival the handsome face of Rory Calhoun in his hey day in this film? Bland it may be, hackneyed plot, lack of reality but what the film may lose in greatness, it makes up for with Rory Calhoun's fine acting and general superb handsomeness.I thoroughly enjoyed the film which shows Rory being dismissed for cowardice and after quite a few adventures and fights he is able to regain his reputation, win the girl, AND get paid for being a handsome fine actor.Sorry chaps, this guy was GORGEOUS!
A rather decent U-I western from 1958.Rory Calhoun is properly vengeful as the wronged soldier who goes after bad guy John Larch and his gang. Beverly Garland was an interesting actress as she really was not beautiful in the traditional, glamorous girl or pinup way. I note this because she looks really 'hot' in this movie. I wonder if Director Richard Carlson had anything to do with this as he added a strong dose of heated passion in another U-I western that he directed four years prior ('Four Guns To the Border'); also with Calhoun. This is a good western and I don't think that you will be disappointed at all. For fans of Ms. Garland, I strongly recommend, 'Gunslinger' (1956) which is a very early directorial effort from Roger Corman. This is a bizarre western (also with John Ireland) which was completed on a shoestring budget and a one week shooting schedule.
Rory Calhoun is a disgraced army officer trying to track down the only man who can clear his name in this bland western with all the standard elements. It does feature the World's most inept lynch mob. So that's something, I suppose. Poor: [4/