A marshal nicknamed "The Hangman" because of his track record in hunting down and capturing wanted criminals traces a robbery suspect to a small town. However, the man is known and liked in the town, and the citizens band together to try to help him avoid capture.
Robert Taylor Tina Louise Fess Parker Jack Lord Gene Evans Mickey Shaughnessy Shirley Harmer James Westerfield Mabel Albertson Jose Gonzales-Gonzales Betty Lynn Lorne Greene Richard Collier Regis Toomey Dorothy Crehan Joseph Hamilton Stuart Holmes Nolan Leary Nelson Leigh Frank Richards Paul Salata Sara Taft Sam Wolfe
El verdugo, Le Bourreau du Nevada, Il boia, El justiciero, Der Henker, O Carrasco, Палач, 刽子手, O Mensageiro da Morte, Człowiek, którego zwano katem
USANR
Germany12
France
Austria12
Austria
France
Germany
USA
When I treated myself a couple of weeks ago to a Robert Taylor boxset, I'd also picked up another couple of his films in passing. Now remarkably I'd only ever seen one film starring Taylor, and in truth I purchased that one for Richard Widmark and director John Sturges, The Law & Jake Wade, where Taylor more than held his own against the Sunrise Township, Minnesota, born legend. My mother-in-law had also stated that Taylor had been one of her favourites during his peak years, and suggested that given my penchant for Westerns, his filmography might be something I'd be interested in?
The Hangman was directed by legendary Hollywood director Michael Curtiz, just a couple of years before his death in…
Michael Curtiz making a movie in the late ’50s that feels like it belongs in the ‘30s or ‘40s is crazy to me.
"You sure got a dang poor opinion of people."
Solid b-western from Michael Curtiz about pessimism and the price of personal morals with some exceptionally fun dialogue and some exceptionally disgusting romance. Jaded Deputy Marshall Bovard rides into town looking for the fourth man involved in a stagecoach robbery, but no one wants to talk and all the locals love the only man he has any reason to suspect. He offers $500 for information to Selah Jennison, a poor & lonely woman who used to know the man Bovard suspects, but even though the money would make a huge difference in her life she doesn't want to give up a man she believes to be so pure of heart.
There's a…
¤"How old are you?"
"Twenty-four."
"You look closer to thirty."
"Thanks."¤
March to the West 2024 – Film #3 of 31
The incredibly prolific Michael Curtiz was far from his commercial and critical heyday with 1959's The Hangman, but this black-and-white Western – while far down his list of popular works – is a predictable if solid enough entry, only three years before his death. Gruff Robert Taylor and scintillating Tina Louise (yeah! Ginger from Gilligan's Island!) have an interesting dynamic, with their pairing commenting on cynicism, justice, and morality in a story of a town protecting a wanted man.
A shame, sort of, that Louise got shoehorned into TV, as she's an amazing actor with the right script. I…
Middle-aged and cynical US Marshall seeks to find and arrest a man involved in a robbery two years prior. His search leads him to a laundry worker that can identify the perpetrator. So begins a story of wills, cynicism, and the role a single bad decision can have on one’s life.
Setting aside the Hollywood ending and the sexy shots of Tina Louise, this movie’s strength is exploring the role of human nature on relationships.
“Burn in hell, Hangman!”
A later film by Michael Curtiz, The Hangman proves to be a moderate Western, certainly not one of the director’s major works. My first film teacher cited Curtiz as his favorite director, but it’s only been in the last 10 years or so that I’ve really given him much attention. The guy made Casablanca and about a bajillion other pictures.
Middle-aged Robert Taylor plays the cold-hearted Marshall dubbed “The Hangman” by the world for his knack for bringing men to meet their day in court and their eventual trip to the gallows. He’s on his final job, running down a gang that robbed a bank, resulting in a woman’s death. The final man he hunts is…
A man is so horny for Ginger from gilligans island's Grade-A bazongas that he rejects mccarthyism in favor of the immortal science of marxism-leninism.
Curtiz usual dramatic hand and his subtle artificial staging playing around a very rhetorical late 50s westerns (Dudley Nichols next to last screenplay). The marriage is uncomfortable, but there's some strong scenes along the way and I always have a good time with how notorious extreme right winger Robert Taylor keeps starring in those liberal movies.
Michael Cutiz takes the Film Noir out yonder to the West.
The two genres merged magnificently, and both benefitted. The pitch-black character-driven mystery gets to play on the rough 'n tough field of the frontier, with a new set of tropes and icons to use. And the wild, wild west gets a fresh spin on its storytelling.
A fantastic dialogue-oriented screenplay offers a twisty plot with incountable turns. A many supporting character being suspicious or untrustworthy, and a detective-esque character orbserving and asking questions as the main driving force of the story. There is very little gunplay or action scenes, no inevitability of a duel. It's much more interested in holding on the suspense, on setting the lawman into a…
One half of this movie is characters pretending Tina Louise isn’t stunning. The other half is the film itself pretending the same thing.
Between the rape-y Day Of The Outlaw and the male gaze-y The Hangman, Tina Louise in 1959 seemed to be a victim of cinema rather than a star of it.
Jane Russell in 1943’s The Outlaw ain’t got nothing on Tina Louise in 1959.
A western in widescreen black-and-white directed by Michael Curtiz during his late post-Warners period. You can't prevent sluggish meaningless from enveloping proceedings when Robert Taylor is your leading man, but there are few things I find more cosy on a summer day than an excessively obvious '50s western. The picture's one distinction is Dudley Nichols' script and its curious sense of justice. Its piece of wisdom is that you shouldn't put someone who (says he) unwittingly participated in a crime before a judge and jury, or prevent his friends from destructively breaking him out of jail, because you can't trust the courts to live up to their commitment to procedural justice and proportional sentencing and, after all, he's nice. For a classic American western, that's uncharacteristically cynical, so it's a pity the film doesn't recognize that, framing its ending as a rejection of cynicism when in fact it's an embrace.
Michael Curtiz was practically incapable of delivering something mid, but this is arguably very close. Screenwriter Dudley Nichols definitely gave Tina Louise's character the "she breasted boobily down the stairs" treatment and of course Bob Taylor was way too old for her.
