A Lawless Street

1955 "They were all running out at the same time ... his luck ... his bullets ... his woman !"
6.4| 1h18m| NR| en
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A Marshal must face unpleasant facts about his past when he attempts to run a criminal gang out of town.

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Konterr Brilliant and touching
ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
zardoz-13 Anybody who knows anything about Hollywood westerns from the 1950s knows that John Wayne loathed Fred Zinnemann's "High Noon" because Gary Cooper's sheriff sought help from the cowardly townspeople and nobody other than his Quaker wife can to his aid. "Red River" director Howard Hawks and Wayne waited seven years later and made "Rio Bravo" as a corrective to "High Noon." Clearly, neither Wayne nor Hawks saw "Gun Crazy" director Joseph H. Lewis' town taming oater "A Lawless Street" (1955) with rugged, square-jawed Randolph Scott who plays a town marshal under similar circumstances. The big difference here is Scott doesn't go searching for help from the townspeople. As it turns out, the townspeople realize by fade-out that they had let their town marshal shouldered too much of the burden while they refused to behave responsibly and share the burden of maintaining safety with the town. Early, in the action, one of the villains observes that half of the people in Medicine Bend are "too yellow to fight back" and the other half are in the pocket of the villainous businessmen. Indeed, the town marshal surrenders both his star and his six-gun after he has cleaned up the town and departs in a buggy with his wife (Angela Lansbury of "Murder, She Wrote") after a lengthy separation between them because she could not tolerate the anxiety as a lawman's spouse.The town of Medicine Bend is about to take on renewed life as a mining boom town because the captains of industry are going to do the smelting in town instead of shipping the ore hundreds of miles out of town. The economic forces behind this move are unscrupulous businessman Hamer Thorne (Warner Anderson of "The Caine Mutiny") and saloon entrepreneur Cody Clark (John Emery of "Spellbound"), and they mean to get things underway by hiring a professional gunslinger, Harley Baskam (Michael Pate of "Hondo"), to liquidate the star packer, Caleb Ware (Randolph Scott of "The Tall T"), and Baskam beats Caleb on the draw in Cody's saloon. The catch is that Baskam's bullet puts a part in Caleb's skull and Dr. Amos Wynn (Wallace Ford of "Freaks") conceals this vital information from everybody. While the villains are living high, wide, and handsome, Wynn has managed to stash Caleb in his own jail to recuperate. Thorne and Clark are either buying out everybody else in Medicine Bend who supported Caleb or killing them. One irate saloon owner, Abe Deland (Frank Ferguson of "Johnny Guitar"), refuses to sell out. He grabs a gun behind his bar, but the gimlet-eyed Baskam drills him. Meantime, Thorne and Clark ride out to the sprawling ranch of Asaph Dean (James Bell of "Blood on the Sun") who initially empowered Caleb to pin on the star three years earlier. A professional town tamer, Caleb has survived many attempts on his life, and two from killers hired by the sleazy Cody. In the first instance, our stalwart hero is relaxing in a barber's chair, getting a shave, when a third-rate gunman, Dingo Brion (Frank Hagney of "Fighting Caravans"), enters, glimpses the marshal's gun and gun belt hanging up nearby out of reach, and brandishes his own six-shooter to make short order of him. Caleb surprises his adversary and plugs him twice with a derringer concealed beneath the sheet covering him. Scenes with heroes surviving shoot-outs in barber shops in westerns are numerous, such as in Clint Eastwood's "High Plains Drifter" and Tonino Valerii's "My Name Is Nobody." The second instance involves a mustached Hispanic with a knife, Juan Tobrez (Don Carlos of "Wyoming Renegades"), who throws and misses Caleb. Under the circumstances, Hispanics could clamor about racial stereotyping because a Mexican wielded a knife. Appropriately, Cody comes to Caleb's aid and guns down the Mexican, largely because he hired the knife-slinger! Ultimately, Caleb meets his match in Baskam, and they duel in the traditional western sense in Cody's saloon. Caleb receives a serious head wound, but he doesn't die. When Baskam steps forward to deliver a coup de grace, Dr. Wynn pulls a gun on the gunslinger, and explains that Caleb is dead. Meantime, a sub-plot that smolders on a back burner involves performing artist and vocalist, Tally Dickenson (Angela Lansbury), who turns out to be Caleb's estranged wife. When he was the lawman in Apache Wells, he was constantly in jeopardy, and she couldn't handle it so she abandoned him. Thorne has imported her into Medicine Bend, but he doesn't know that she is estranged from Caleb. Some days pass, and Caleb emerges from his enforced confinement and tangles with Baskam again, but he doesn't give him a fair chance. In this respect, Caleb's action predate John Wayne's action against sharp-shooting gunslinger Christopher George in "El Dorado." Altogether, "A Lawless Street" qualifies as an intelligent, above-average horse opera with Randolph Scott that doesn't wear out its welcome at 78-minutes.
Spikeopath Marshal Calem Ware (Randolph Scott) is tired of Medicine Bend, tired of killing and tired of reprobates trying to kill him. He's also haunted by pain in his past. So when the past resurfaces and yet another scum-bag turns up to put out his light, Calem faces what he hopes will be the final day of reckoning.Brought to us by the Scott/Brown production company, A Lawless Street is directed by Joseph H. Lewis, adapted from a Brad Ward story (Marshal of Medicine Bend) by Kenneth Gamet and features cinematography from Ray Rennahan at French Ranch - Hidden Valley Road, Thousand Oaks in California. Joining Scott in the cast are Angela Lansbury, Warner Anderson, Jean Parker & Wallace Ford.This film came a year before Scott would do Seven Men From Now with Budd Boetticher, the start of which was a run of "adult" Westerns that showcased the best of both Scott and the Western of the 50s. So it's not unsurprising to find that "A Lawless Street" is some way short of the quality of the Boetticher/Scott movies. In fact, Scott may not just be in character for the film, he looks genuinely tired, which is in keeping with the very tired feel of it all.It has proved to be a pretty divisive film amongst Western purists, the routine story not helped by the fact it has been done to perfection before in other, more notable genre pieces. While the script also lacks vim and vigour and Scott is surrounded by very average actors. The ending fizzles out after the promise of so much more, and in fact it's ponderously drawn out. Yet the first half of the film saves it from being a stinker, Lewis' camera-work is fluid and fist fight fans are served up a treat. And we even get Lansbury flexing her tonsils for a delightful little ditty.So it's very much a film of two differing halves, one that sadly doesn't make for a satisfying whole. Much like Switzerland, I'm staying neutral with it, a 5/10 rating is given on proviso that it's noted that where Scott and Lewis are concerned, I'm unashamedly biased.
bkoganbing Randolph Scott is the town marshal like Gary Cooper in High Noon. Only instead of four guys coming to town to kill the marshal because of an old grudge, here we have a trio of villains, Warner Anderson, John Emery, and Michael Pate. The first two have been hiring folks to do in Scott because they want a wide open and lawless town for the saloon business. They've finally settled on Pate who does beat Scott to the draw and folks think he's been killed. Warner Anderson is a particularly smarmy villain. He's got designs on Angela Lansbury who's a touring musical performer in town for a few performances. He's also been romancing the wife of the biggest rancher in the area played by Jean Parker and he says openly that it was only for his own amusement. That remark costs him dear in the movie later on.Scott has a particularly brutal fight scene with Don Megowan who's the brother of a man Scott kills in the first 15 minutes of the film. Ranks up there with his classic brawls with John Wayne in The Spoilers and Pittsburgh. I remember a Gunsmoke episode years ago where this particular plot line was used. Someone beats Matt Dillon to the draw and Doc Adams pretends he's dead and in the meantime works furiously to save his life. Here that role is taken by town doctor Wallace Ford. Both Randolph Scott and James Arness live to best the villain, but the story is how in both cases and I won't say more.A good cast of veteran Hollywood performers makes A Lawless Street a pleasure to watch. And Angela Lansbury has a musical number. What's better than that?
Eric Chapman Sort of an early "Unforgiven" in some ways. Also similar to director Lewis' "Terror in a Texas Town" though thankfully not as goofy or campy. You get a real sense of the wild west slowly being tamed, of it making the uneasy transition from a violent, lawless land to a reasonably civilized place where law and order stand a chance. I liked Randolph Scott's metaphor for the town, that it's like a wild animal that keeps getting kicked, and sooner or later it's going to do more than just snarl and growl miserably; it's going to bite back. Scott makes a good, twinkle-eyed loner hero and Angela Lansbury is quite attractive as his leggy showgirl love interest, (though she would begin playing mothers of grown children just a few years later) but their romance is rather obligatory and uninspired. Both the villains are effective, Warner Anderson as the unscrupulous (what else?)womanizing businessman and Michael Pate as the sinister gloved gunman (Lewis seems to have a thing about gunman wearing gloves). Anderson's line deliveries are extremely flat and matter of fact, which just makes him that much more detestable somehow. He's like a greed machine, no heart, no emotion whatsoever.At first glance this may seem like no more than just another passable western, but it's got some meat on its bones. And Lewis really shines when it comes to building the suspense leading up to the inevitable bar room showdown between the bad guy and the good.