IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

classicsoncall Audie Murphy's name may be at the top of the bill but it's pretty much Dan Duryea's picture the way he overtakes any scene he's in. Duryea reminded me of Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo in the 1947 film "Kiss of Death" the way he laughs maniacally whether the situation calls for it or not. I was thinking that if there was an old lady in the story, he might have thrown her down a flight of stairs just for the fun of it.Murphy's character is Clay O'Mara, returning from a railroad job (no, really, he worked for a railroad, he wasn't railroaded) to track down the villain who murdered his father and brother during a cattle rustling operation. His quarry is upstanding citizen Tom Meredith (William Pullen) doing a hide in plain sight in concert with crooked Santiago town sheriff (Paul Birch). The pair send him on a mission sure to get O'Mara seriously killed when they finger Whitey Kincaid (Duryea) as a prime suspect.It's never explained in the story how Clay O'Mara came by his skill with a six shooter. I was probably more surprised that Kincaid when the 'kid' shot the gun right out of his hand in a barroom face off. Sure you expect it of the story's hero but the groundwork was never laid for it, and O'Mara himself never gave a clue how he was so handy with a gun. Maybe he should have been the ringer in the story instead of Russell Johnson.Say, did you notice the bars of the jail cell Whitey got locked up in - what's with the flimsy cross-hatch design? It looked like you could have pried them open with a decent crow bar if you had one. Probably why Kincaid didn't have one. He didn't need it actually since the sheriff gave him his gun back.I don't know what might be considered the first revisionist Western but Duryea's performance here might be considered one of the earliest examples of a cowboy anti-hero. He's a villain you come to terms with the way Murphy's character did when he turned his back on the outlaw and lived to tell about it. It's too bad really that he didn't make it to the end of the picture.

s_pendergast A strong supporting cast and good writing make this one of Audie's better efforts from this period before westerns devolved into parodies of themselves. Dan Duryea and Russell Johnson (the professor from Gilligan) have surprisingly interesting roles. Duryea plays the bad guy with the good heart. Johnson plays an apparent weak drunkard who surprises.Audie plays it straight as a naive young man, Clay Omara, seeking justice for the slayers of his brother and father but every once in a while shows he's tougher and smarter than the average bad guy. Abbe Lane and Susan Cabot add a dash of spice. Lane is the saloon girl with the heart of gold. Cabot is the sheriff's niece engaged to the town lawyers who it is immediately apparent will fall for Clay.

mike-1921 This is probably one of my top 3-4 favorite Audie Murphy movies, and I've seen about 20 of them--or about 50% of what he made. Dan Duryea as Whitey Kinkaid is a very interesting and amusing character who plays nicely off Audie's very credible performance. Russell Johnson (later the Professor on Gilligan's Island) as Jed Ringer and the lawyer and sheriff have some great lines that offset the B picture sets. All in all, this is a highly watchable movie, along with another Murphy/Duryea team-up, "Six Black Horses." Duryea and Murphy appeared together again in Jimmy Stewart's "Night Passage," but I like Ride Clear of Diablo and Horses better. Would pay $500 to have Audie's full filmography on DVD.

bsmith5552 "Ride Clear of Diablo" was another of the Audie Murphy series of "B-Plus" westerns released by Universal during the 50s and early 60s. Universal always populated the casts with their contract players and other familiar faces. They were well mounted little films usually running about 80 minutes and mostly shot in color. The story in this film involves Clay O'Meara (Murphy) returning to town following the murder of his father and brother by unscrupulous lawyer Tom Meredith (William Pullen), crooked Sheriff Fred Kenyon (Paul Birch) and henchman Jed Ringer (Russell Johnson). To throw him off the trail, the unholy three blame the crime on known bad man Whitey Kincaid (Dan Duryea) and send O'Meara off to Diablo to bring him in knowing full well that he'll probably be killed by the gunman. Kincaid meanwhile takes a liking to O'Meara and against his better judgment, lends O'Meara a hand. The sheriff's niece is engaged to Meredith but of course, falls in love with O'Meara. Ringer meantime, is planning a double-cross of the other two and then running off with saloon girl Kate (Abbe Lane). Murphy essentially played the same one dimensional character in his series but was always aided by superior supporting casts. Duryea, playing his signature likeable villain role, is allowed to go way over the top by director Jesse Hibbs in this one (it's about that laugh). He was always better on the wrong side of the law and was always an asset to any movie that he appeared in. The beautiful Susan Cabot plays the standard helpless heroine role and Abbe Lane gets to sing a couple of forgettable songs. Also in the cast are veteran western performers Jack Elam, Denver Pyle, Lane Bradford and Holly Bane. Here's a little trivia with which to end my comments: - Audie Murphy was the most decorated American soldier in WWII; - Susan Cabot died tragically at the hands of her son, actor Christopher Jones, in 1986; - Dan Duryea wound up on the TV soap "Peyton Place" just prior to his death in 1968; - Russell Johnson became famous as "The Professor" in TV's "Gilligan's Island"; - Abbe Lane was married to band leader Xavier Cugat at the time of this film.