Last Train from Gun Hill **** (1959, Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Carolyn Jones, Earl Holliman, Brian G Hutton, Brad Dexter) – Classic Movie Review 3,409

The brilliant 1959 Western film Last Train from Gun Hill comes from the star, director and producer of Gunfight at the OK Corral. Kirk Douglas stars as Marshal Matt Morgan, determined to bring his wife’s rapist and killer (Earl Holliman) to justice.

Now… from the star, the director and the producer of Gunfight at the OK Corral comes the 1959 Western film Last Train from Gun Hill.

Kirk Douglas stars as Marshal Matt Morgan, a stalwart, agonised lawman, who is determined to bring to justice his wife’s rapist and killer and get him aboard that last train. He is Rick Belden (Earl Holliman), the son of his long-time buddy, cattle boss Craig Belden (Anthony Quinn). The mighty Quinn, of course, has other ideas.

This brilliant 1959 suspense Western Last Train from Gun Hill from director John Sturges is based on a story called Showdown by Les Crutchfield and has a conventional plot and stereotypical characters.

But the superior star power of the cast of Douglas, Quinn, Holliman, Carolyn Jones, Brian G Hutton and Brad Dexter, Sturges’s iron-willed professionalism, the lovely Dimitri Tiomkin score and Charles Lang’s fine VistaVision widescreen and Technicolor cinematography combine to keep it rivetingly tense through the long build-up to the all-action showdown finale.

Well above average for the Fifties cowboy trail, Last Train from Gun Hill is an intelligent, extremely enjoyable movie experience for vintage Western buffs.

Also in the cast are Ziva Rodann, Bing Russell, Val Avery, Walter Sande, Lars Henderson, Henry Wills, John P Anderson, Dabs Greer, Charles Stevens, Glenn Strange, and Ty Hardin (Bronco) as Cowboy Loafer (uncredited).

Producer Hal B Wallis bought Les Crutchfield’s story back in March 1954, intending it as a vehicle for Charlton Heston or Burt Lancaster.

Douglas and Holliman had previously appeared together in Sturges’s Gunfight at the OK Corral, which used much of the same crew.

It was shot in and around Old Tucson Studios outside Tucson, Arizona; Sonoita, Arizona; and at Paramount Studios and its back lot in Los Angeles.

Last Train from Gun Hill runs 90 minutes, is made by Hal Wallis Productions and Kirk Douglas’s Bryna Productions, is distributed by Paramount Pictures, and was released on 29 July 1959.

The cast are Kirk Douglas as Marshal Matt Morgan, Anthony Quinn as Craig Belden, Carolyn Jones as Linda, Earl Holliman as Rick Belden, Brad Dexter as Beero, Brian G Hutton as Lee Smithers, Ziva Rodann as Catherine Morgan, Bing Russell as Skag, Val Avery as Horseshoe bartender Steve, Walter Sande as Sheriff Bartlett, Lars Henderson, Henry Wills, John P Anderson, Dabs Greer, Charles Stevens, Glenn Strange, and Ty Hardin as Cowboy Loafer.

Earl Holliman in a promotional photo for Last Train from Gun Hill.

Earl Holliman (born September 11, 1928) is known for his many character roles in 1950s and 1960s films, mostly Westerns and dramas. He won a Golden Globe Award for The Rainmaker (1956) and played Sergeant Bill Crowley on the TV police drama Police Woman (1974–1978).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,409

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