Six Black Horses ** (1962, Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea, Joan O’Brien, George Wallace, Roy Barcroft, Bob Steele) – Classic Movie Review 9948

Director Harry Keller’s 1962 film Six Black Horses is a dutifully predictable Western tale of the handsome, strong-willed young woman Kelly (Joan O’Brien) getting tough cowboy Ben Lane (Audie Murphy) and cattle thief Frank Jesse (Dan Duryea) to help her to cross Indian land, supposedly to be reunited with her husband.

Along the way, she proposes that Murphy kill Duryea, because in fact he has killed her husband, and she offers Murphy both men’s fee for the escort job. The tricky Duryea, meanwhile, is after Murphy’s stash of cash in the bank. Now Murphy’s loyalty is tested, along with everyone’s courage and resolve.

Burt Kennedy’s screenplay has its moments of tension and slight humour, and the film looks good in Maury Gertsman’s unusual Eastmancolor Utah location cinematography, but it is too slackly handled to be very exciting.

Murphy is his just usual self, though that is fine, but Duryea helps raise the level and temperature a bit in a splashy display of villainy, and so do appearances from Western old-timers George Wallace, Roy Barcroft and Bob Steele.

George Wallace (1917-2005): ‘I enjoyed Westerns. I thought I should have been born in 1880.’

Also in the cast are Phil Chambers, Charlita Regis, Richard Pascoe [Dick Pascoe], Joe Garcio, Dale Van Sickel, and Henry Wills.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9948

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