bkoganbing Jack Palance looks kind of odd with that mustache he wore for The Lonely Man. Still he's not the psychotic Palance we've seen in many of his films. He's the world weary gunfighter who's looking to get out of the business. But the notorious King Fisher played by Neville Brand who nearly died from a gunfight with Palance is looking to settle old accounts with Palance.Of course King Fisher in fact was a real notorious gunman who operated in Texas. Brand gives a nice performance, but this is most definitely not King Fisher's story.Anthony Perkins who specialized in playing callow youths in the Fifties is Palance's son along for the ride unwillingly because Palance left his mother way back when who is dead now. Perkins just has no other place to go.In fact Palance has one very good reason for leaving gunfighting which I will not reveal. His only hope is that he can move as far as he can.Palance and Perkins do strike a nice balance as the world weary father and his rebellious and a bit stupid son. There's also a nice supporting cast with people like Lee Van Cleef, Elisha Cook,Jr. and Robert Middleton and Claude Akins. All tried and true cinema villains though they're not all villains here.A downer of a film,still nicely done.

JohnHowardReid A talkative and somewhat slow-moving western that gradually builds to a good climax, The Lonely Man is further hampered by the casting of two super-slow talkers, namely Jack Palance and Anthony Perkins, in the leading roles. When these two men are on screen, I always have the feeling that they speak slowly because they feel the dialogue has a depth to it which is not readily apparent to a bum director like Henry Levin, so they are forced to do his job for him by speaking extra slowly so that the audience will get all the hidden nuances that Levin has neither the guts nor the ability to bring out. True, Levin had a reputation as a fast shooter and I've no doubt the movie is not as effective as it might have been had Levin been forced to direct the rest of the film with as much care as he brings to the Palace-Perkins scenes and to the climactic gun fight. Fortunately, the rugged natural locales of the story are impressively captured by cinematographer Lionel Lindon, and a young actress named Elaine Aiken makes an impressive debut, but alas, nothing came of her career. She had minor roles in Doomsday Voyage, Night Flowers, Caddyshack and that's it! The Lonely Man is available on a very good Paramount DVD.

Tilly Gokbudak I found "Lonely Man' in a local library. I can't believe it only has 26 votes on the IMDB. This is not as great as the Anthony Mann films I've studied in grad school. There is one with Anthony Perkins called "The Tin Star" which I would recommend more. But, this is still a good Western which doesn't follow the conventional theme/structure narrative. Worth a look.

gitrich Jack Palance and Anthony Perkins give decent performances in this boring western that is filled with meaningless dialog and unbelievable situations. Location in Long Pine California brings some realism even in black and white but I still can not recommend The Lonely Man.