YouHeart I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Michael Morrison With lots of intricate subordinate plot in the overall probably familiar tale of a tough town tamer, this script by N.B. Stone, Jr., and Richard Wilson is very well served by an excellent cast, led by Robert Mitchum.Jan Sterling, a superlative actress not often enough given a character to show her talent, is second billed as a strong and tough woman who chaperones her female charges, who only dance and entertain, but who are seen by the blue-nosed women of the town as something worse.Karen Sharpe, who has never looked prettier, very girl-next-door-ish, plays the daughter of the town blacksmith who is also the town leader.The daughter is conflicted but her father, played beautifully by Emile Meyer, is not.One of the glories of this excellent motion picture is the number of other characters -- I hesitate to say "minor" because they all figure in the story -- whose lives and actions are pivotal.By one of those coincidences, I just finished a novel by Louis L'Amour with a very similar plot, except the town tamer in "The Empty Land" really doesn't want his role while Mitchum's Clint Tollinger does.This might be the best script for a movie I've ever watched about a town tamer. It has depth and darkness and a realism not often found in Westerns of the 1950s era. Excellent script and excellent cast make this a movie I recommend. And you can see it at YouTube. When I watched, it was interrupted by too many commercials, but that's a fairly low price to see it.

mark.waltz When a troubled stranger (Robert Mitchum) arrives in a western town looking for his estranged wife (Jan Sterling), he is made the sheriff to try and clean it up, finding out that his wife is involved in the local corruption. It all surrounds the one local theater (the "Palace" of course) where Sterling (dowdily dressed in an all black severe get-up and prim hairstyle) is obviously more than just the proprietor, possibly a madam as well. This film strikes interest when it deals with the human elements of Mitchum's strong but quiet surgeon, but it seems to have a different mood each of its characters, particularly Karen Sharpe's who sometimes brays her lines. Then, when an enormously fat man (Emile Meyer) shows up suddenly without a word, it is very predictable where the film is going. It is ironic to realize that Hollywood at this time viewed enormously large people either as comical or sinister, and there's no doubt to this one's character. The conflict between Mitchum and one villain in the Palace is the most memorable scene as Mitchum deals with the said villain in a most unique and unforgettable way.While this has the standard western look with sleepy town and dirt roads, the camera uses angles to traipse through it that gives it an interesting, almost 3D look. There are some particularly disturbing moments, such as one of the bad guys shooting a barking pup "just because. Henry Hull is excellent as the town's veteran lawman who can't handle the corruption. Early appearances by Angie Dickinson and Claude Akins will have you keeping a sharp eye out. That's "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?'s" Maisie Norman as Sterling's maid, not Juanita Moore ("Imitation of Life"), which I point out because I've confused them a few times too. I rank this among the psychological westerns influenced by "High Noon" that deserve repeat viewings to pick up Freudian references to many issues we still deal with today. The tense atmosphere keeps it engaging, and the interesting characters help it rise above the many other westerns which took on these themes.

Panamint Leo Gordon, dressed in black, shoots a little boy's dog just because it barks at him. "Town tamer" Mitchum at one point runs amok in a saloon. There are some very mean characters in this psychological western, which at least does show that meanness is a major human psychological trait. It also has a pretty good, if brief, "catharsis" moment at the end.Terrific supporting cast- bombastic Henry Hull (Jesse James '39, Return of Frank James '50), excellent but underused Maidie Norman, and an early Claude Akins bad-guy performance. You are guaranteed to notice a very young Angie Dickinson (and her long legs).Mitchum manages to somehow humanize a wooden character but its just a thankless role. Barbara Lawrence is terrific and noticeable and far outshines a boring attempt at "drama" by Jan Sterling. Not really Sterling's fault- the character is written poorly.A good example of film music composition by North. It features a melodic main theme, but also a separate striking dramatic theme. Notice when he brilliantly overlays one theme over the other as Mitchum's character seems to be cracking up.This is a black-and-white set-bound psychological Western, which in other movies can be a formula for dullsville. However, "Man With The Gun" moves at a good pace and is made worthwhile by a great cast. You definitely will enjoy their performances.

Spondonman I don't remember ever seeing this one before tonight, probably the title sounded so ordinary it kept passing me by. But it is a well crafted b Western, with an interestingly brooding storyline complemented by acting veering from the good to corny.Robert Mitchum slopes into wide open town looking for his wife and news of their daughter, and stays for a time as town-tamer. As usual the good business folk have mixed emotions - they want to get rid of the baddies but like the business they bring. It still applies: relax drink and gambling laws and encourage the industries but pretend to deplore the seedy effects it can have on ordinary people. What's fascinating about this film is Mitchum's cynically intense portrayal in going about cleaning the town of baddies, and the townsfolk's acceptance that his violent methods were the only ones. Favourite bit: the sudden demise of 2 of the baddies in the Red Dog saloon. The firing of the main saloon bordered on nasty, but it was an effective way to combat the spread of poison.Overall a very good film with its only fault tending to be a little hokeyness - not so good for Do-Gooders who would probably prefer a lifetime of negotiation with Evil rather than end it.