Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

John Brooks This is better than one would expect looking at the poster and cast and what not. Obviously running in at about 1h30, and given its plot, it's not meant to be a masterclass in film making either, but it's always at least interesting to have a watch of Anthony Perkins or Henry Fonda on screen. Here, we're even given a pretty entertaining flick with interesting scenes and fine moments of sensitivity. There's a nice subtly to the film that helps instill a certain sense of fairness, respect and ultimately justice. It's not done in the cheesy way you'd expect though. The characters are good: the film is complex enough in its actors to not be the utterly straightforward affair these often become. Sure it could've had a bit more development, depth, and quality overall, and it really did have potential for more - but this is good enough.

dougdoepke No need to recap the plot. I have to agree with Doug Balch's perceptive review—there're too many flaws in this Mann western to rate with his best. In the pivotal tenderfoot role, Perkins is callow enough but lacks the inner mettle to make his transition to tough guy believable. On the other hand, Fonda's total self-assurance does get tiresome. Jimmy Stewart as Morg, I think, would have conveyed some needed inner life. The movie manages to touch all the expected bases, apart from a racial subtext that reflects America's growing civil rights movement. And as Balch points out, the serial showdown with the McGaffeys is both implausible and poorly staged. Too bad, also, that Paramount couldn't pop for more than an obvious studio town and LA area locations. These familiar settings have cheap TV production written all over them. Perhaps this is why Mann directs in an unusually impersonal manner.On the other hand, Mann manages to soften rough spots with smooth pacing, though I don't spot many of his stylings, especially the reality of violence. I also agree that McIntire delivers the movie's best performance as the frontier doctor. He's quite vivid and believable. Also, the doc's demise and aftermath is almost inspired and amounts to the movie's highpoint. All in all, there's good reason, I think, why this oater is not generally included among Mann's best. After all, it's results and not reputations that should count.(In passing—the movie came along at a time when the boyish Perkins was being promoted as a bobbysox idol. Fortunately, Hitchcock saw through the mirage, thus qualifying the actor for movie immortality.)

tieman64 Anthony Mann could direct the hell out of a western. "The Tin Star" is one of his underrated ones, though like most films in the genre, there's also something sleazy about the whole plot.The film stars the always lovable Henry Fonda as an embittered bounty hunter who rides into town to find a young sheriff, played by a well-cast Anthony Perkins, struggling to maintain law and order. As he was himself once a sheriff, Fonda decides to hang around town and help the young gun. Much of the film's best moments involve Fonda dispensing wisdom, offering advice, teaching Perkins to shoot, disarm men, shell out justice and keep the citizenry safe.The film is impeccably shot, with Mann's usual plays on perspective, symmetry (the film opens and closes with the same shot, but from different angles) and "depths of field". It's Mann's sense of slow, mounting tension, and his interesting compositional work (lots of low angles, forced perspectives and shots which stress a kind of three dimensional depth) which would influence Leone's style when shooting duels, showdowns and gunfights. The sheriff's office in the film, with its expansive windows which offer massive widescreen views of the film's town, is also special.The film has a subplot about racism, the mistreatment of Native American Indians and the ostracising of "half breeds", a trend which began to filter into westerns only in the 1950s. See "Broken Lance" for another early example. The westerns of Mann and other auteurs were always ahead of Ford in this respect. Still, the film's subplots about racism and outsiders "trying to belong" are undermined by the psychic ripples of its very Wild West mentality, in which we're made to grin with glee when cartoon bad guys push our buttons and are summarily gunned down. The film's climactic gunfight practically baits you into lusting after murder, and like most Westerns the film hinges on false choices; either a lawless, anarchic violence perpetuated by psychopaths, or tough guy justice, in which its the white man's burden to keep order with barrels and bullets. Shoot to kill, always, Fonda schools us, because then Chaos comes knocking. By the 60s, Westerns would evolve into fare like "Shenandoah" (starring Mann-Western regular, Jimmy Stewart), which is openly anti-interventionism, anti-combat, before the blood and guts pop-nihilism of the Leone, Peckinpah era, with their oh-so-attractive mixture of dumb nostalgia (a mourning for the passing of those "olden days") and mindless, purgative violence."The Tim Star's" score was by the great Elmer Bernstein. It's regarded by hard-core Western-fans as Mann's last classic Western.7.5/10 – Worth one viewing.

drystyx This is a fairly basic Western. The story line here is the veteran helping the young lawman learn to be a lawman who lives long enough to do a good job.Fonda is the veteran, and Perkins is the young lawman.Neville Brand is the bully, of course, who wants to be in charge.A couple of subplot romances.It's what Mann does with an ordinary script that makes this a triumph. The story is well paced, and exciting, and ends with a showdown scene that has got to be on any serious top ten of all time list. The camera angles and the dialog would make even modern "in your face" directors envious. It is a showcase demonstration that should be in every "Film Director" class.