Five Guns West on Encore Western Channel on August 9, 2007!

[Phil C]

It starts at 9:40 A.M. This is a great western staring John Lund as the leader of pardoned confederate soldiers at the end of the civil war who go on a dangerous mission for the South. It also stars Dorothy Malone who stared in several westerns around this time with Fred MacMurray and Randolph Scott to name a couple. This movie was made in 1955 and when she won the academy award in 1956 (Written on the Wind) she moved on to bigger and better things. It also stars Touch (Mike) Connors who plays a gambler and he was later to star in the lead role of the popular tv series called Mannix.

It was produced and directed by Roger Corman who produced several offbeat westerns at this time but was later more famous for making many horror movies such as House of Usher and The Pit and The Pendulum.

This is a good western worth seeing. It is not a great one but still worth watching especially knowing several people involved were to move on to bigger and better things.

[luvhoops34]

Thanks Phil, I'm sure we'll watch it.

[Phil C]

I didn't realize but this is Corman's first job and it is worth watching to see it for that.

Other actors who did well in the movie even though they didn't achieve great fame include the following:

James Stone as Malone's Uncle Mime.

The three other men under John Lund are the two Candy Brothers played by R. Wright as John and Janathan Haze as Billy. Both do a great job as unprincipled outlaws.

The other gang member is Paul Birch as J.C. He was the one who didn't get a death penalty but 20 years in prison. He is the oldest of the outlaws and really got into trouble by the law unwittenly and is really a good bad guy. His crime was stampeding cattle to get the Northern lines to sell them to the union army. The stampede caused the death of two Confederate soldiers as well as his own men. J.C. no doubt would have been pardoned after the North won the civil war. He does a good job in this movie as the likable J.C.