campbell-russell-a I sometimes like to watch films that just don't work because it shows you why other films work so well. Ninety percent of a good film is due to casting. "The Stranger Wore a Gun" is badly miscast. Scott was a straight-forward actor and here he is asked to deal with complications that are beyond his range. Macready was a great villain but not a western villain. He was too silky in voice and manner. He was a gentleman villain whose evil was best expressed over a Chateaubriand and a fine red - not a whiskey. Alfonso Bedoya could act but here he is given the role of a stereotypical buffoon. In "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" he was a deadly dangerous buffoon but not a clown as in this film. The script is so poor that even fine actors like Earnest Borgnine and Lee Marvin are uninteresting. If they can't lend color to a script, then you know it is a stinker. The story is an odd one. This is not always death to a film but in this case it seems that no one really knew the point of telling the story. Was it supposed to be entertaining? Did it have some moral or human truths to tell? If so, they were lost on me.It seems incredible that the experienced cast and crew made such a film but it is indicative of the fact that films, no matter who makes them, have elements that are beyond the control of their makers. No wonder directors are often so worried about how their test audience will respond to their film. And if you go for art, you run the risk of making junk. If you go for a B grader, you at least get a watchable Saturday afternoon potboiler. I think "The Stranger" went for something more than a matinée western that was the stock in trade of Randolph Scott and finished up with something that was neither fish nor fowl.

Jimmy L. In the first five minutes it is obvious that this film was made to be shown in 3-D. Objects are thrown directly at the camera to the point of distraction. Guns are pointed directly at the viewer.The movie is a B-grade western about robbing stagecoaches. The cast is headed by Randolph Scott (THE TALL T) and Claire Trevor (STAGECOACH), and also features George Macready (GILDA), Ernest Borgnine (BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK), and Lee Marvin (THE DIRTY DOZEN). Alfonso Bedoya (THE BIG COUNTRY) plays a rival Mexican bandit, cheerfully stumbling through his English lines. The acting is second-rate outside of the seasoned pros and the familiar story is not aided by clumsy action scenes and the annoying 3-D gimmick.It is amusing, though, to see some of the techniques used to enhance the 3-D experience. Sure, every loose object within arm's reach is picked up and hurled at the camera by hot-tempered cowboys. But there are also chase scenes that are rear-projected and filmed with rocks in the foreground (in front of the rear-projection screen) to simulate a sense of depth and perspective. The background image is very blurry, with the rocks in clear focus.In the story, Scott works as an inside man for gold robberies. But when things go too far, he decides he's playing for the wrong team, angering his boss. Macready leads the bandits, with Marvin and Borgnine as his trusty muscle. Bedoya is Macready's rival, and Scott plays the two against each other. Run-of-the-mill Western stuff.

Claudio Carvalho During the American Civil War, the Quantrill's raiders use the spy Jeff Travis (Randolph Scott) to plunder the city of Lawrence, in Kansas, and Travis leaves Quantrill when he sees the massacre of the town. After the war, Travis believes that he is a wanted man and he heads to Prescott, in Arizona, to start a new life. However, the powerful Jules Mourret (George Macready), who apparently is a businessman but actually is the leader of a gang of thieves, knows his past and forges documents with a fake identity to give a job in the local Conroy Stage and Freighter Line. Mourret is unsuccessful trying to steal the money and gold transported by the company but is frequently lured by Jason Conroy (Pierre Watkin); he intends to use Travis to get inside information about the transportation of gold. When one of Mourret's men kills the driver of the wagon, Travis schemes a plan to get rid of the gang. "The Stranger Wore a Gun" is only an average Western and is disappointing considering the names of Randolph Scott, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in the cast. The story is weird and the motives of the ambiguous character performed by Randolph Scott are absolutely confused, but in the end this movie entertains. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "O Pistoleiro" ("The Gunman")

Robert J. Maxwell The location shooting was done at Movie Flats off Route 395 near Lone Pine, California, and, along with a lot of faces in this film, will be familiar to experienced moviegoers. They've been making movies up there for years. The rocks themselves are studded with bolts and adhesions of cement left over from early productions, which date back at least to "Gunga Din." And it's easy to see why it was used so often in inexpensive Westerns like this. The jumbo-sized boulders seem made of stucco and the Sierra Nevadas in the background include Mt. Whitney, as colorful as a painted backdrop. The whole place looks as if nature had put it there to be used as a spectacularly realistic phony movie set.Yes, it's alive with history. The ghosts of a thousand extras in sombreros haunt these rugged trails, and at night when the wind moans you can hear the hoofbeats of yesteryear. Zzzzz. Some of the ghosts must surely include Randolph Scott, who spent so much time before the cameras here in so many movies. In this one, he's an ex-confederate who allows himself to be hired out to save a stagecoach company that ships gold to -- well, never mind.Scott is in his burnished Western middle age and rides his usual horse, a beautiful mount, a kind of rusty brown animal with a white face, white maine, and white tail. (I was momentarily tempted to call the horse a "roan" but hesitated to do so because I don't know what the word means.) Anyway, the horse will be almost as familiar as Scott. Scott's hat will look familiar too. So will Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin, the two outstanding heels of "Bad Day at Black Rock," but they don't get enough screen time. Alfonso Bedoya, Gold Hat from "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," has more screen time. He can't act, but he doesn't have to. If you think he did curious things to the word "badges" in "Treasure," you absolutely must hear how he wraps his speech organs around "foreigner" in this one. George MacReady is the chief villain. I prefer it when his villainy is of a slyer, more boardroom-bound sort.Claire Trevor is a hooker with a heart of gold. I know it's hard to believe, but hookers come in all different varieties. Joan Weldon is pretty and was a singer rather than an actress. There is a marvelous scene in which Scott introduces his old girl friend, Trevor, to Weldon, the new young beauty he's just met, and the two women trade the kind of insults and suspicious queries that only women know how to sling about. "It's funny he never mentioned you to me." And, "From the way he described you, I thought you'd be much older." Scott, meanwhile, is standing there with this dumb smile, looking back and forth at his two friends, as if pleased that they are being so nice to one another, giving an excellent impression of a man who hasn't the slightest idea of what's going on between them. Movies like this don't crop up on TV very often and sometimes, remembering how much I enjoyed them as a child, I find myself missing them. Then sometimes they DO show up, as this one did, and I watch it out of curiosity and wind up realizing that there are a lot of things to be nostalgic about but Westerns like this aren't among them.