A Day of Fury ** (1956, Dale Robertson, Mara Corday, Jock Mahoney, Carl Benton Reid, John Dehner, Jan Merlin, James Bell) – Classic Movie Review 8311

Director Harmon Jones’s sturdy 1956 Universal Pictures Western film A Day of Fury stars Dale Robertson as the pistol-slinging cowboy Jagade, unhappy with the cleaned-up town where he dwells, who decides to reopen the saloon and bring back the dancing girls even if that means fighting his old lawman buddy Marshal Allan Burnett (Jock Mahoney), whom he had snatched from the jaws of death at the yarn’s outset.

A Day of Fury is a humble, but entirely adequate B-movie Western, nicely made and shot in eye-catching Technicolor colour images by Ellis W Carter, with just about enough fury in the action and the characters’ passions to hold the interest. It is shame, however, that James Edmiston’s story is on the weak side because the actors put a lot of effort into it to make it work.

Alas, though, A Day of Fury is the very kind of short (78 minutes) cinema support movie that TV Westerns, including Robertson’s own series Tales of Wells Fargo (1957-62), were just about to put out of business.

Also in the cast are Mara Corday, Carl Benton Reid, John Dehner, Jan Merlin (as Billy Brand), James Bell, Dee Carroll, Sheila Bromley, Dani Crayne, Howard Wendell, Charles Cane, Phil Chambers, Sydney Mason and Helen Kleeb.

The screenplay is by James Edmiston and Oscar Brodney, based on the story by James Edmiston.

It was quickly and economically made from 22 July 1955 to August 1955 in the studio and on the Backlot at Universal Studios, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California.

Jan Merlin (1925–2019).

RIP Jan Merlin, who played villains in dozens of films and TV shows, died on 20 September 2019, aged 94. His first movie was Them! (1954) as Radio Man on the SS Viking (uncredited) and his last was False Identity (1990) as Potter – Pete. He was a shared Daytime Emmy winner as writer for Another World (1964).

 © Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8311

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com