Copyright 1958 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at RKO neighborhood cinemas: 4 June 1958. U.S. release: 1 June 1958. U.K. release: 27 July 1958. Australian release: 17 July 1958. 100 minutes. U.K. and Australian release title: MAN HUNT (up to 150 feet censored).
SYNOPSIS: Tod Lohman (Don Murray), a peace-loving man, is pursued across the New Mexico wastelands by Tom Boyd (Dennis Hopper), his brother Otis (Ken Scott), and a small posse who wish to believe Tod had murdered another brother when actually the brother had accidentally fallen on Tod's knife during a fight. Hunter Boyd (R. G. Armstrong), their father, a cattle baron who writes his own laws, seeks revenge. Tod meets Amos Bradley (Chill Wills), a rancher, and his daughter, Nita (Diane Varsi). Amos knows the Boyds are after Tod but he himself has no love for any of them.
NOTES: One of the two best westerns of the 1950s, according to William K. Everson in his comprehensive study of the genre. (The other is "Shane").
COMMENT: Disappointing. True, the action spots are most effectively staged and directed with all that customary Hathaway vigor. True also that the heavy is an appropriately strong, interesting character — "a powerful wicked man but with a peculiar sense of justice all his own" — forcefully played by R. G. Armstrong. But with the exception of Jay C. Flippen and John Larch (and these parts are not all that large), the rest of the characters are weak and uninteresting. And alas they are just as insipidly played by folk like Chill Wills and Diane Varsi.
Admittedly Dennis Hopper is supposed to be weak — so he's excused — but when the hero Don Murray is tepid too it doesn't exactly make for gripping conflict. The Varsi character for all her gameness is still a pretty conventional heroine. As for Chill Wills, he's so stereotyped and so bland, he ends up just plain dull.
The movie would impact more powerfully with a lot of trimming. One of the first scenes to leave on the cutting-room floor is a romantic interlude in which either Hathaway or his editor has experimented with odd angle cutting. It doesn't work. Also ripe for the shears are some boringly long-winded dialogue scenes with Murray, Varsi and Wills.
Locations are well utilized, though their appeal is somewhat undermined by obvious day-for-night lensing and glaring process screen backdrops. And we're still saddled with that early CinemaScope fuzzy photography. Other production credits are no more than par.
SYNOPSIS: Tod Lohman (Don Murray), a peace-loving man, is pursued across the New Mexico wastelands by Tom Boyd (Dennis Hopper), his brother Otis (Ken Scott), and a small posse who wish to believe Tod had murdered another brother when actually the brother had accidentally fallen on Tod's knife during a fight. Hunter Boyd (R. G. Armstrong), their father, a cattle baron who writes his own laws, seeks revenge. Tod meets Amos Bradley (Chill Wills), a rancher, and his daughter, Nita (Diane Varsi). Amos knows the Boyds are after Tod but he himself has no love for any of them.
NOTES: One of the two best westerns of the 1950s, according to William K. Everson in his comprehensive study of the genre. (The other is "Shane").
COMMENT: Disappointing. True, the action spots are most effectively staged and directed with all that customary Hathaway vigor. True also that the heavy is an appropriately strong, interesting character — "a powerful wicked man but with a peculiar sense of justice all his own" — forcefully played by R. G. Armstrong. But with the exception of Jay C. Flippen and John Larch (and these parts are not all that large), the rest of the characters are weak and uninteresting. And alas they are just as insipidly played by folk like Chill Wills and Diane Varsi.
Admittedly Dennis Hopper is supposed to be weak — so he's excused — but when the hero Don Murray is tepid too it doesn't exactly make for gripping conflict. The Varsi character for all her gameness is still a pretty conventional heroine. As for Chill Wills, he's so stereotyped and so bland, he ends up just plain dull.
The movie would impact more powerfully with a lot of trimming. One of the first scenes to leave on the cutting-room floor is a romantic interlude in which either Hathaway or his editor has experimented with odd angle cutting. It doesn't work. Also ripe for the shears are some boringly long-winded dialogue scenes with Murray, Varsi and Wills.
Locations are well utilized, though their appeal is somewhat undermined by obvious day-for-night lensing and glaring process screen backdrops. And we're still saddled with that early CinemaScope fuzzy photography. Other production credits are no more than par.