Movie Review: The Quick Gun (1964)

The movie stars Audie Murphy, James Best, Merry Anders, Ted de Corsia and Walter Sande.

I'm sitting on the couch looking up potential donors for my daughter's upcoming ice show and happened to come across this film on one of our movie channels. There didn't seem to be anything overly special about it. But, I recognized James Best from his Dukes of Hazzard days and decided to put it on solely because of him. As it turns out, it was a halfway decent movie.

This was pretty much what I expect from a classic western. There's a loyal (though misunderstood) hero (Murphy) who is just trying to do the right thing despite so much conspiring against him. There's a ruthless villain (de Corsia). And, there's plenty of action in between the first scene and the final battle.

Even though Murphy was the star of this film, I think I actually liked Best's Sheriff Scotty Grant better. I was impressed with the way he managed to keep a cool head and be the voice of reason  even as a group of bandits approached his town and the townspeople were ready to lynch the one man who could help them.

He also wasn't afraid to make sacrifices, whether it was giving up the woman he loved (Anders) or putting his own life on the line in an effort to stop the outlaws and save the people he was sworn to protect. He may have only been a supporting character, but he was a real hero in my book.

The final battle is also much more interesting than I thought it would be. Normally, films like this get a bit predictable. However, that wasn't the case this time around. This is both because of Cooper ending up in jail (once again because of defending himself) just before the final battle and the way he ultimately had to take on the outlaws practically by himself. It made me wonder if he was going to pull it off or if this would be one of those movies that has the hero save the day but die in the process. That kept me interested until the very end as a result.

This was an interesting movie that I ended up enjoying much more than I was expecting to. I would recommend it as a result of that.

My Grade: A