ChitoRaffferty The musical score for this picture was pretty bad. I'm not saying if done right it would have been a difference maker (the film is mediocre). But goodness it sounded like they took samples from every bad TV score in the 50's --I heard it all before-- and tried to do their "Badlanders" score on the cheap. The film was ok. Ladd though clearly in decline did his best with a weak script. Katy Jurado as usual was a strong support presence.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 1958. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at sixty neighborhoods: 3 September 1958. U.K. release: 14 December 1958. Australian release: 4 December 1958. 7,477 feet. 83 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Alan Ladd plays a Dutchman (!) who wants to rob a mine in Prescott, Arizona. He hires Ernest Borgnine as his gunslinger. But Ernest falls in love with an attractive Mexican girl, Katy Jurado.COMMENT: Well below what you would expect of a Daves western, especially as it was made so close to "Three Ten to Yuma" and "The Last Wagon". Daves claims that when he was making the movie, neither he nor any of the players or technicians were aware that the script was a re-hash of "Asphalt Jungle" with a number of extremely odd changes, including an astonishing finish in which the Sam Jaffe character rides off into the sunset with the Marilyn Monroe character. It's hard to completely credit Daves' claim, because he seems to have done his best in certain scenes to out-Huston Huston. The extraordinary opening, for instance, featuring a fight among six convicts who are chained together, and the shot of Borgnine, an embittered prisoner, stumbling out of the opaque blackness of solitary into the blinding daylight. Of course, Alan Ladd also exerted some influence on the movie, insisting on the hiring of the noted film noir cameraman, John Seitz, who has certainly contrived some striking effects. Nonetheless, despite some fine slices of action, including the mine robbery and the climactic (but infuriatingly brief) gunfight, this is a patchy film.

dougdoepke Two ex-cons plan a gold heist from a mine that was stolen from one of them.The movie's uneven, with several compelling parts (the gang assault on Anita {Jurado}, the overhead shots of the mobs coming together). But there's also a slackness, particularly in the undercover mining sequence, which should have been more riveting. I hate to say so, but Alan Ladd (Dutchman) appears too laid back to be convincing as a gang leader. Maybe that's why a lively Borgnine (McBain) gets equal screen time. At this stage of his career, Ladd was apparently drinking heavily and unfortunately it shows.Director Daves was responsible for a number of superior westerns during this period, including 3:10 to Yuma (1957), and Jubal (1956), among others. In fact, he's one of the more underrated western filmmakers of the studio period. Too bad this project doesn't measure up to the caliber of his better ones. I suspect it's because of uneven pacing and Ladd's lack of assertiveness.Anyway, the thread with Borgnine and Jurado is rather touching, along with the silent crowd of Mexicans apparently too intimidated to intervene during the attempted rape. The racial aspect is present without being played up, a nicely subtle touch. Still, the 80-some minutes are generally too uneven to add up to anything memorable.

bill-790 The other reviews pretty much explain what this movie is all about. I would like to add a couple of thoughts.First, this is probably Alan Ladd's last quality production. The photography and locations are all very good, and the cast is solid. Compare those aspects with Ladd's subsequent films, such as "Man in the Net" and "Guns of the Timberland." Those two are definitely disappointing, not up to the standards of a star who excelled in films such as "This Gun for Hire," "The Blue Dahlia," and "Shane".Second, the ending undermines the film's impact. Viewers who have seen "The Asphalt Jungle" will attest to the fact that the very grim conclusion of that classic seems inevitable and fitting. In the case of "The Badlanders," I suspect that Ladd himself rejected any such ending (if in fact such had been contemplated).(By the way, the same can be said for an earlier Ladd film. "Thunder in the East" also has a happy ending that virtually defines the term deus ex machina. Had the principles all been killed in that one, it would have had a tragic quality that would have made it much better.) "The Badlanders" is a good film (though not a great one) despite the above criticism. Had it appeared right after "Shane," it might have been a major hit. Unfortunately, by 1958 Alan Ladd's personal decline was all too evident. Perhaps it was too late for a Ladd film, even a good one, to break through.