Last Train From Gun Hill (1959)

This was never quite considered among the top tier of 50s Westerns, despite the obviously good production values, a top director (John Sturges) and a top star (Kirk Douglas). It’s undeniably very entertaining but that placing is probably justified: it isn’t particularly original and there isn’t a huge amount of depth to the story.

Kirk Douglas is a local Sheriff whose (Indian) wife is raped and murdered by the son of the local bigwig rancher. Quite reasonably he’s unhappy about this and sets off to bring in the wayward son. The rancher (played by Anthony Quinn) is the most interesting part of the film – an old friend of Douglas’s who is simultaneously (generally) disappointed with his son but also committed to protecting the son.

Much of the second half of the film has Douglas and the son holed up in a hotel room awaiting the arrival of the titular train (that will get them out of town and the son to jail). This aspect of it ends up resembling 3:10 to Yuma quite strongly. However, unlike 3:10, there’s not a huge interest in the hero’s motivations which are pretty straightforward here.

In summary, it’s a very entertaining 90 minutes which never outstays its welcome and is excellently made, but there are better films from the same time period with similar plots and which deal with similar issues.