mark.waltz This is a convoluted and often frustrating tale of claims jumpers ruthlessly hopping from threat to threat (and killing them anyway) that seems to be too determined to keep a constantly tense pace which ultimately causes its downfall. It has great color photography and a great set-up, but there are far too many characters written with too many clichés, but often takes some fascinating, sinister turns. The real reason to watch this movie is Audie Murphy, photographed with sort of a shining light around him that makes his already shiny black leather jacket seem to shine in the darkness seen constantly around him. Howard Hughes' former protégé, Faith Domergue, plays a well dressed, well spoken young lady who suddenly strangles a wounded man to death, yet remains sugary sweet throughout the film. She's striking in her beautiful period dresses, but its easy to see why she quickly faded away. Susan Cabot scores better as the tough Dusty whom several of the men think of basically another one of the guys, but occasionally see through her tomboy looks as being a true woman. Stephen McNally is more the traditional hero, and even though Murphy gets top billing, the best photography and the girl, McNally's character is really the moral compass of the film. Other than an early film appearance by Lee Marvin, the other supporting characters all seem to jumble together.

Spondonman This is an entertaining but brief '50's Western and is still on UK TV regularly mainly because it was lucky enough to get shot in colour. However the story isn't too bad either, this side of Tolstoy anyway.Wild bunch of brutal claim jumpers are terrorising the locality, but eventually fall foul of full-of-himself Marshal Lightning Stephen McNally (also doubling up as the noirish narrator) and the wronged Silver Kid played by smooth Audie Murphy. Who also respectively fall foul of dirty Brown Eyes and clean Dusty. In between the downbeat comments from McNally there's some sparkling dialogue, perhaps more intelligent than should be expected from this type of film but it helps keep you onboard while the hackneyed plot unfolds. Favourite bits: McNally's varying speeds of eating betwixt fillies; Murphy being told to stay in the jailhouse but turning up everywhere in Brown Eyes' house naturally riling McNally; Johnny Sombrero's swift comeuppance.No surprises but quite a good film really, although sadly most people nowadays would pass it by as they prefer nothing but sex and gore for their entertainment.

MBunge The Duel at Silver Creek is a nice example of how much fun the Western used to be before the genre got all serious and realistic.In this story, claim jumpers are running wild near the town of Silver City. They're bushwacking people who have small claims around the gold rich Silver Creek, forcing them to sign over their claims and then killing them. But they get more than they bargain for when they try to jump the claim of a father and son. They do get the claim and kill the old man, but his son (Audie Murphy) kills three of the gang with his silver-handled revolvers. "Lightning" Tyrone (Stephen McNally), the marshal of Silver City, rounds up a posse to go after the claim jumpers but he ends up shot in the shoulder and the gang escapes. "Lightning" is taken to nearby Fort Lowell, where he's patched up but his shooting hand is crippled. He doesn't have the strength to pull a trigger anymore. While recovering at Fort Lowell, "Lightning" becomes infatuated with Opal Lacey (Faith Domgergue), a pretty lady in a pretty dress he takes to calling "brown eyes". But the audience soon discovers those brown eyes disguise a great many unpleasant things. "Lightning" returns to Silver City to find an old friend dead, shot in the back. He suspects Johnny Sombrero (Eugene Iglesias), the local bad man who happens to look like a Mexican Liberace, but has no proof. The marshal also runs into the son of the gold miner slain at the start of the film. Dubbed the Silver Kid now, the young man becomes "Lightning's" deputy and the two of them are pitted against the machinations of Johnny Sombrero, the claim jumpers and the beautiful Opal. Joining them is Dusty (Susan Cabot), a tom boy who's had a crush on the older "Lightning" for years. He doesn't see her as anything more than a little sister, but the Silver Kid has more romantic intentions toward her. The fast moving story has quite a few twists and turns before climaxing in a big gun battle between the claim jumpers and a new posse, which finally ends when one of the oldest and dumbest tricks in the book actually works.I liked this film a lot but I have to admit, it's a fairly generic 1950s Western. By modern standards it's corny with two-dimensional characters and unremarkable dialog. The plot is a bit more involved than you might expect, however this isn't a story with any great depth or meaning to it. It's a fairly basic Western with good men, a bad woman and guns getting shot out of people's hands. If you're looking for gritty realism and edgy storytelling, this isn't the movie for you.The Duel at Silver Creek is never anything more than a pleasant diversion and I don't think the filmmakers wanted it to be anything more than that. It moves at a brisk pace with plenty of traditional Western action. There's actually a great deal of stuff going on in the story, leading to simplistic but believable conflict between the characters. It's a great looking film with a couple of scenes that have a quite a visual kick to them. All of the actors do a good job for this sort of melodramatic tale. It's just a nice piece of entertainment.It's nowhere near being one of the great Westerns, but The Duel at Silver Creek is a good Western. If you can get past stuff like the claim jumpers leaving a ransom note and literally signing it "The Jumpers", I think you'll get a kick out of this movie.

classicsoncall I'm not really sure what director Don Siegel was going for here, but it looks like he might have been trying to put one over on the movie Western fan. The first tip off is the scene where we're introduced to Marshal Lightning (Stephen McNally) of Silver City and a confrontation he has with Johnny Sombrero (Eugene Iglesias). Johnny Sombrero? This felt like one of those Mel Brooks spoofs to come down the pike a couple of decades later, I'm thinking of "Blazing Saddles". Even the name of bad guy Lacy's business, the Acme Mining Company, brought me back to those Wile E. Coyote cartoons where the hapless varmint just couldn't keep up with the Roadrunner. Are you starting to get the picture? Siegel then peppers the script with characters like the Silver Kid and Dusty; he even gives the outlaw leader's moll two names - Opal Lacy and Brown Eyes. All very camp.But also all very entertaining. The principals take the ball and run with it, and give them credit for for doing it without cracking up. There are so many inconsistencies in the picture that I almost lost count. How about Opal Lacy's (Faith Domergue) first scene when she chokes the claim jumped miner brought into the Army Hospital? With no time to loosen the bandanna, the Cavalry doc simply picks it up to cover the face of the dead miner. No suspicion there, right? And say, didn't the Silver Kid (Audie Murphy) gun down Tinhorn (Lee Marvin) after that card game when the Kid laid down three aces? Tinhorn shows up later none the worse for wear. At least Marvin stayed dead after he got shot by John Wayne in "The Comancheros". But I did get a kick out of The Kid's name for Tinhorn - 'sheep dip'. Audie Murphy may not have had the face of a killer, but he killed me with that line.I'll say this for Murphy though - even though he never quite brought his film persona up to the level of his real life war record, he has about the boldest action move I've ever seen in a Western in this flick. At the final shoot out at the mining camp, Murphy dives through the window and INTO the outlaw cabin! There could have been a whole boat load of bad guys in there and he could have come out like a sponge. But he did it in the name of love, rescuing his gal Dusty (Susan Cabot). I thought it was pretty cool the way Kid compared relationships and life to a hand of poker; with that save he showed all his cards.Of course the good guy team of Marshal Lightning and Silver Kid come out on top in the finale. It blows by pretty quickly, but it's revealed that Rod and Opal Lacy weren't siblings, which didn't make a whole lot of sense given the way the story was going. Lightning uses the old 'throw the rock in the other direction' trick to gun down the bad guy, and the only thing missing was a big old Cadillac to drive the heroes off into the sunset. Mel Brooks would have thought of that.