Alicia I love this movie so much

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

bkoganbing With the completion of The Cimarron Kid Audie Murphy played three of the Old West's legendary outlaws, Billy The Kid in The Kid From Texas, Jesse James in Kansas Raiders, and Bill Doolin in this film. I'm not sure any other player earned that distinction.Not that this is a true story of Doolin any more than those other two Universal western classics. Still Murphy makes an appealing and misunderstood hero who tries to go straight but the elements and his destiny work against him.True enough his running buddies were the Dalton gang and in this film Doolin who was picked up by the railroad detectives after his release from prison when the Daltons held up the train he was riding. He was just a paying passenger, but the railroad cops thought he was in on it.Standing out in the supporting cast is Hugh O'Brian who plays Murphy's rival for gang leadership. The fact that Murphy shoots better and has more upstairs than O'Brian fazes him not a wit. He's a mean and surly man miles from the upright Wyatt Earp he played on television.Budd Boetticher directed Murphy in good polished style and this western delivers on both action and plot.

Spikeopath The Cimarron Kid is directed by Budd Boetticher and written by Louis Stevens and Kay Lenard. It stars Audie Murphy, Beverly Tyler, James Best, Yvette Dugay, John Hudson, Leif Erickson, Noah Beery Junior and Hugh O'Brian. Music is by Joseph Gershenson and cinematography by Charles P. Boyle.Murphy stars as Bill Doolin, AKA: The Cimarron Kid, who leaves prison intending to go straight. However, when the Dalton Gang rob the train he is a passenger on, one of them recognises him and vocally brings it to the attention of the rest of the passengers. Incorrectly earmarked as one of the gang, Doolin finds himself on the run from the law and forced to hide out with the Dalton's. Bitter and angry at the false way he has been perceived, Doolin becomes an active part of the gang, but there is love in the air with Carrie Roberts (Tyler) offering hope of a new, on the right side of the law, life.Boetticher is a name dear to the hearts of Western fans, he would go forward from here to make the Ranown Westerns with Randolph Scott, thus leaving a considerable mark in the psychological Western pantheon. Invariably his other forays into the genre struggle to hold a torch to those later efforts, but although they lack the insightfulness and quality of narrative of those pictures made with Scott, the likes of this and The Man from the Alamo are minor gems well worth discovering.The story on premise terms doesn't offer anything new, where the core beat of the picture is about a man who has been dealt some bad life cards and can't escape his criminal past. Yet the story is unfolded in such away that hope is dangled in front of The Kid and we are never sure how it will pan out for him? In fact the finale has a couple of kickers that ensure it's well worth the viewing experience. There's the usual roll call of gang character's, including the loose cannon (O'Brian), but that familiarity of genre convention is off set by the addition of Yvette Dugay's Rose of Cimarron. She's a crafty and athletic part of the set up, a well written part and Dugay performs it well whilst joining Tyler in the gorgeous Technicolor darlings stakes.This is also a picture high on action and filled with lovely outdoor photography. Locations used are the historical parks at Columbia State and Railtown 1897, both are photographed expertly by Boyle, with Boetticher deftly utilising them to aid the story. Best of the action comes with a shoot out and escape after the Coffeyville bank raids (resplendent with burning hay wagon), while the quite excellent and extended shoot out centred around Railtown's turntable is one of the finest action constructions on Boetticher's CV. Cast are strong, led superbly by a thoughtful Murphy performance of substance, and prolific Western scorer Gershenson adds the required bombast and tenderness when required.Its B movie worth sometimes shows, such as handcuffs that mysteriously disappear from the escaping Doolin, but taken as a whole this is a little cracker of an Oater and highly recommended to Western fans. 8/10

oldblackandwhite The Cimarron Kid is a tightly-made, action-packed, very entertaining Western of the Oklahoma outlaws sub-genre. It is well directed by Bud Boetticher, generally well acted, pleasingly scored, and beautifully filmed in three-strip Technicolor. Costumes, gun leather, railroad equipment and sets are quite authentic looking for the late 19th century era. The the outdoor locations, though actually California, were well chosen to look suitably like Okieland. As an added bonus, there are lots of period railroad equipment, with a shootout in a rural roundhouse one of the rousing action scenes.There is not really much to find wrong is this little oat burner, except for Audie Murphy's awful acting. Let's face, a wooden cigar store Indian with a microphone implant could do little worse. But even that serious handicap is overcome by Boetticher's skillful direction and a creative script that concentrates on the interesting supporting cast of characters, especially Noah Berry, Jr.'s Bob Dalton, and the love relationship between Bitter Creek Dalton (James Best) and Cimarron Rose (Yvette Duguay). This device happily keeps the camera away from Murphy's frozen features for most of the screen time. Yvette Duguay, though only fourth-billed, actually steals the show as the outlaw gang's resourceful gun moll. Pretty, exotic, lively, and sexy, she is more interesting and appealing in every way than Audie's ho-hum love interest, second-billed Beverly Tyler. Good support is also contributed by veteran character actors Roy Roberts and Leif Erickson. Altogether a very satisfying little Western. Better than some of the bigger productions from the same early 1950's era and certainly superior to any of the pretentious plates of tripe passed off as Westerns today.

MartinHafer When I received a DVD from Netflix with this film and "The Man From the Alamo" on it, I wondered why I'd placed this disk on my queue. After all, I am not a huge fan of westerns and the films appeared pretty unremarkable. However, when I noticed both films were directed by Budd Boetticher, I remembered that THIS was why I'd put these films on my list many months earlier. Boetticher was a wonderful director who managed to make his westerns better than the norm--with stories that lack many of the usual clichés. Unfortunately, this film is not typical of Boetticher's better films, as there are a lot of clichés spread throughout the movie.This is an odd film, since it is a remake of another movie ("The Doolins of Oklahoma") that was released just three years earlier! While remakes were very common, remaking a film so quickly wasn't. In the case of "The Cimarron Kid", Audie Murphy takes on the role previously played by Randolph Scott--and, frankly, no one can play a western role better than Scott, so Murphy is at a big disadvantage.The film begins with Murphy being pardoned and released from prison. It seems that he'd been convicted of robbery based solely on his friendships and the law finally realized her was innocent. However, when the train he's on is robbed by his old friends, people naturally assume he's one of them--and he's a wanted man all over again! So, in an odd twist, he DOES join the gang. But because he's basically a swell guy, he leads the gang in becoming more thoughtful and less prone to just blasting people--sort of a kinder, gentler form of banditry. I really expected this all to pay off better than it did. But the film is morally ambiguous and seems to say that Murphy is a good bad-guy! And, until it concludes, there are lots of clichés--such as the quick-tempered guy (Hugh O'Brian) who you just know will have a showdown with Murphy sooner or later, the lady who thinks Murphy is not beyond redemption and several others. Despite the clichés and the strange leading character, the film was well made and is interesting--even with the dumb ending that made little sense.I should also add that while I love Boetticher films, I also hate westerns that portray and glamorize minor western villains like the Daltons, Jesse James or Billy the Kid. 99% of the exploits they do on film are untrue and the men were mostly a lot of cheap crooks--yet Hollywood raised them almost to hero status and fictionalized their lives. So, when Murphy infiltrates this famous gang, I felt a bit annoyed...the sort of annoyed that history teachers like myself are good at becoming!By the way, during the roundhouse scene, why was it important for Rose to activate the turntable?! Really. The gang was NOT using a train!!