Gunfight at Comanche Creek ** (1963, Audie Murphy, Ben Cooper, Colleen Miller, John Hubbard) – Classic Movie Review 8258

Director Frank McDonald’s 1964 Gunfight at Comanche Creek is a remake of the unspectacular George Montgomery Western Last of the Bad Men (1957), this time starring Audie Murphy as the good guy, agent Bob Gifford, who is jailed in Comanche Creek for train robbery and works his way infiltrated into a murdering outlaw gang as an undercover detective, and of course eventually brings them to justice.

Murphy is stalwart and very watchable, but little action, a fairly bland screenplay by Edward Bernd and a cast lacking big stars all add up to some rather feeble Western action entertainment. On the plus side, however, it is a reasonable colour production for low budget studio Allied Artists, the cast is interesting and useful, McDonald manages to inject a little of both dynamism and tension into the familiar proceedings, and it builds to the excellent climactic gunfight.

Colleen Miller provides the glamour as lovely saloon keeper Abbie Stevens. Thomas Browne Henry plays Mike O’Bryant, Chief of the National Detective Agency, who arranges to have agent Bob Gifford jailed as part of the effort to round up the gang.

DeForest Kelley (Bones in Star Trek) appears in a small but key role as Amos Troop, leader of the outlaw gang. Also in the cast are Ben Cooper, John Hubbard, Jan Merlin, Adam Williams, Damian O’Flynn, Mort Mills, Susan Seaforth [Susan Seaforth Hayes], William Wellman Jr, John Milford, Michael T Mikler, Laurie Mitchell and Tim Graham.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8258

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