Ride a Crooked Trail ** (1958, Audie Murphy, Walter Matthau, Gia Scala, Henry Silva) – Classic Movie Review 11,710

Walter Matthau as a drunken judge and Audie Murphy as a Wild West desperado make another odd couple in the 1958 Western film Ride a Crooked Trail.

Director Jesse Hibbs’s 1958 Western film Ride a Crooked Trail is written by Borden Chase, based on a story by George Bruce, is shot in CinemaScope and Eastman Color, and stars Audie Murphy, Walter Matthau, Gia Scala, Henry Silva, Joanna Moore, Leo Gordon, and Mary Field.

A drunken law enforcer, Judge Kyle (Matthau), mistakes a notorious Wild West desperado, bank robber Joe Maybe (Murphy), for a lawman. Murphy, who was planning to rob the town’s bank, is assigned to keep the peace and put in charge of a young orphan boy. A fellow outlaw, bandit leader Sam Teeler (Henry Silva), breaks into the bank and Joe Maybe (Murphy) has a clash of loyalties. Joe Maybe’s old flame Tessa Milott (Gia Scala) knows who he is, and her boyfriend is the bandit leader Sam Teeler.

Ride a Crooked Trail is an amiable, traditional, solidly written Western, working within the clichés, though it is hardly an original action-adventure, but with a cast of old dependables gamely playing along in stereotype parts.

A likely tale is par for Murphy’s Fifties Western course, but Matthau’s stupendous turn gives it a major boost.

Murphy was perhaps better known for being the most heavily decorated soldier in the USA as a World War Two hero than for his acting talents, but he was a strong movie presence and he could have done with something a little more unusual than this to play with.

The cast: Audie Murphy as Joe Maybe, Gia Scala as Tessa Milotte, Walter Matthau as Judge Kyle, Henry Silva as Sam Teeler, Joanna Moore as Little Brandy, Eddie Little as Jimmy, Mary Field as Mrs Curtis, Leo Gordon as Sam Mason, Mort Mills as Pecos, Frank Chase as Ben, Bill Walker as Jackson, Ned Wever as Attorney Clark, Richard H Cutting as Mr Curtis, and Paul Newlan as Riverboat Captain.

It is Hibbs’s final feature film.

The film was mostly filmed on the Universal backlot with some location shooting at the Janss Conejo Ranch in Thousand Oaks, California.

Tragically, during the shoot, the day after Gia Scala learned her mother was dying of cancer and was involved in a drinking and driving car accident. The 38-year-old Scala was found dead in her Hollywood Hills home on 30 April 1972 from accidental acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication.

Ride a Crooked Trail is directed by Jesse Hibbs, runs 88 minutes, is made and released by Universal Pictures, is written by Borden Chase, based on a story by George Bruce, is shot in CinemaScope and Eastman Color by Harold Lipstein, is produced by Howard Pine, and is scored by Joseph Gershenson.

Henry Silva (September 23, 1926 – September 14, 2022)

Henry Silva was a prolific American character actor, with career that spanned 50 years with more than 140 credits.

Gia Scala (born Josephine Grace Johanna Scoglio; March 3, 1934 – April 30, 1972)

Gia Scala was a British-American actress born in Liverpool to a Sicilian father and an Irish mother.

 © Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,710

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