classicsoncall I think my summary quote might have been more appropriate for Bill Bixby's character Johnsy Boy after the old rifleman came on the scene for a little payback with the branding iron. Man, wasn't that some crazed way to go out? About as good as Frank Gorshin describing the incident to his buddies at the Two Butt Saloon. It looked like Gorshin was still stuck on his Riddler character from the Batman TV series of the mid-Sixties.So I just watched two Westerns back to back that ended with unsatisfying conclusions. The other one was "Will Penny" starring Charlton Heston. I guess one could make a case for Jonas Trapp (Chuck Connors) riding off into the sunset without his wife considering what happened here, but he went to a lot of trouble for nothing. Not that the revenge angle didn't play out satisfactorily enough, but he should have figured after eleven years gone, nobody was going to hang around waiting for him to show up again.This is one of those movies where it seems like the roles were handed out by drawing names from a hat. The casting is really eclectic, with players like Connors, Bixby, Gorshin, Michael Rennie, Kathryn Hays, Joan Blondell, Gloria Grahame, Claude Akins and Paul Fix. The Western movie character actors all made sense, but the rest looked a little out of place. Even the opener was a little strange with the modern day setting resolving to a flashback to reminisce about La Noche del Tigre, the Night of the Tiger.But at least it had that great bar room brawl with Claude Akins up against Connors; that was one of the more memorable ones you'll find in a Western. It certainly felt more realistic than Connors knocking out Buddy Baer with one punch. You know, I'm still thinking about the cast list, and it brings to mind a picture made a decade later called "The Night They Took Miss Beautiful". That one had Gary Collins, Henry Gibson, Victoria Principal, and Phil Silvers, and right in the middle of it all was a guy who's name was pulled out of a hat - Chuck Connors.

bkoganbing Ride Beyond Vengeance casts Chuck Connors as a returning buffalo hunter returning to his wife after an eleven year absence. Sounds a whole lot like the plot premise for the Iliad and Connors does go through some trials just like Ulysses did.Eleven years earlier Connors married Kathryn Hays who faked a pregnancy to get her aunt Ruth Warrick to consent to the wedding. Hays is a few steps up the social scale from Connors. Anyway he hauls out and says he'll make a fortune and return.But like Ulysses he stays away and on his return is set upon and actually branded with a running iron. The three who do it are a pair of bottom feeding sadists Bill Bixby and Claude Akins and also Michael Rennie who's a rich man courting Hays because he and everyone else think her husband is dead.Connors ain't dead and when he wakes up he's going to take care of business the way Ulysses took care of all of Penelope's prospective suitors.This no frills B western has a fine supporting cast to Connors and Hays. In very telling bits are Joan Blondell as a bordello madam and Gloria Grahame as an unfaithful wife having an affair with younger Bill Bixby. It's a flashback to the Forties and Fifties when Grahame was the big screen's number one trollop.As for Bixby and Akins the two of them are incredible studies in villainy. Akins who in his big screen career played some of the biggest low life villains ever really hits rock bottom here. He overacts outrageously, but all to good effect.Bixby is the first one who Connors catches up with and his devolution as a human being may contain his finest big screen performance. Later on Frank Gorshin in a small bit himself gives a description of Bixby's final moments that will unnerve you for days.Ride Beyond Vengeance is one brutal and savage western which no way would have made it in the days of those cowboy heroes for Republic. This is one western recommended highly for adults and forbidden for little kids.

mmarcuswarren This may well be the best role Chuck Connors ever had outside of his regular TV series work. A griping tale of a man who leaves his wife to go off and make a fortune for her only to return 10 years later. A return that is met with rejection by the woman he left behind and a brutal beating and robbing that leaves the man branded as a thief. An action that sets him down a road of vengeance against the three men who robbed him and sets the entire town on edge. With excellent performances by Bill Bixby, Michael Rennie, Kathryn Hayes and Claude Adkins as a borderline psychotic who talks to his invisible friend "Whiskey Man." This one is definitely worth catching and of late has appeared many times on the Westerns Channel where it is shown uncut and without commercial interruption which helps to add even more to the movement of the story. A film filled with many great actors who are all sadly either gone or no longer practicing their craft today. All of whom give the viewer some of their best performances ever. As for during the 60s when this was made, it would have definitely had an audience in those drive-in theaters of yesterday. An excellent one all around.

jflash2000 This movie is in one word, "Classic!", the characters are very memorable, and it portrays a quality and originality that you do not find in movies anymore! The author of this story, obviously knows how to write a story, that keeps the viewer mesmerized! I would recommend this movie to anyone!