Review of Buckskin

Buckskin (1968)
6/10
Miners Vs. Homesteaders
17 December 2012
Buckskin is yet another western where A.C. Lyles provides employment for famous Hollywood players past their prime. Barry Sullivan is the star here, a US Marshal come to a small Montana town with specific intent of taking down town boss Wendell Corey. For reasons I can't explain he brings his young son to the town and quite frankly had I been him I'd not have brought a child into harm's way. And since the child's mother who is deceased was an Indian all the more reason.

I wasn't completely clear why Corey wants the homesteaders out of the area, he's dammed up the stream that they get water for their crops. We know a railroad is coming through the following year, but that's all.

What Corey has done is pit the miners against the homesteaders and the homesteaders have their families. Not much of a fair fight, in the end though Sullivan has an ace.

Some grievous plot holes is made up for a nice bit of action specifically when Sullivan blows up the dam and also in the final shootout. Joan Caulfield is the former schoolteacher turned saloon girl who Sullivan redeems. Such other A.C. Lyles regulars as Lon Chaney, Jr., John Russell, and Richard Arlen are in the cast. Bill Williams and Barbara Hale, husband and wife in real life, play a husband and wife here and I'm not sure if this isn't the only time that happened. I know Williams did a couple of Perry Mason guest shots while Hale was playing Della Street.

I like the A.C. Lyles westerns even some of the bad ones and this is not a completely bad one.
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