Hellfire (1949)

How sad is this?

Absolutely Fantastic

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Card cheat Bill Elliott (Zeb) changes his ways and promises to build a church out in the Wild West after Minister H. B. Warner (brother Joseph) takes a bullet for him. The building of a church had been Warner's dream and Elliott gives his word to raise the money for it. However, he also commits to following God's path. Things get tricky when he comes across Marie Windsor (Doll) on the hunt for her sister. She has pretty much everyone after her and there is a reward out for her - dead or alive.A peculiarity of this film is the way in which it is coloured. I'm not sure how intentional it was but the colours are heavily biased towards blue-ish green and something rather peachy. I'm not sure whether this is due to the quality fading but it certainly is different. The story covers quite a lot of ground and I enjoyed the ride, despite some heavy over-preachy nonsense, particularly at the end. Shame about that, really. The ending is somewhat ambiguous - what happens next? The standout in the cast is Marie Windsor who plays her bad girl role very convincingly and has you rooting for her all the way. Go on Windsor! Shoot the holy guy. I'm fed up of his wholesome ways. The film is a buddy buddy movie at its core as we follow the relationship that develops between Elliott and Windsor as they seek their goals together. And it's not bad.

I have heard of Marie Windsor, but never saw her in a film prior to this. Because she toiled at poverty-row studios I guess I had a prejudice against her without ever having seen her, but boy! She was terrific. Her character as Doll in this western with a religious twist was strongly written and strongly played. William Elliot seemed just right in his role as a bad boy trying to walk the straight-and-narrow. This really is a unique film in the history of westerns and the Trucolor makes this a time capsule of poverty-row color technology. Essentially a two-color process, it shows up in red-orange and green, although the skies appear as blue. The print streamed on Netflix was in excellent shape, with no excessive lines or dirt present, and the overall experience was one of gratitude that they have managed to save so many of these low-budget studio films. To the casual viewer who thinks only the majors could achieve quality, the modern-day viewing of some of these B films proves that they too could achieve quality if not consistently then at least occasionally.

On the scale of classic westerns this would be a 6 but as far as Republic "B" westerns goes, this is a 9. An unusual script that could have been a disaster is smartly handled by veteran action director R.G. Springsteen and the solid casting of Wild Bill Elliott, Marie Windsor and Forrest Tucker. With characters like a reformed gambler turned preacher and a female outlaw, this oater had Worst 100 potential. But the tension is built by the credibility of the actors who make the whole thing seem feasible. The musical number (why did every western have to have one)is mercifully brief and the TRUCOLOR always makes a film look richer than its low budget production. It's currently in the WESTERNS Channel rotation, catch it for an entertaining 90 minutes.

When it was made(1949)this was probably pretty rough stuff. Windsor is great as the "loose woman" on the dodge, and Elliott, once again is the anti-hero...crooked gambler turned preacher. The supporting cast is tops with Jim Davis, Paul Fix, and many other familiar faces. This is a morality tale, told in fine fashion. A great companion piece to Elliot's "Savage Horde" (1950).