The Hangman ** (1959, Robert Taylor, Tina Louise, Fess Parker, Jack Lord) – Classic Movie Review 9239

Director Michael Curtiz’s uninspired 1959 Western film The Hangman stars Robert Taylor as embittered sheriff U.S. Marshal Bovard, nicknamed The Hangman, who arrives in a small US border town to arrest a fugitive after four outlaws rob a Wells Fargo stage.

The fugitive is popular with everyone in town and the citizens band together to try to help him. Bovard is helped by humane lawman Sheriff Buck Weston (Fess Parker) and Selah Jennison (Tina Louise), the woman they both love. [Spoiler alert] Eventually, Bovard compassionately allows the prisoner to escape from the town where he is so very well liked.

More than just hard work and professionalism were needed to make this old yarn from a story by Luke Short work well again, though there is nothing wrong with Dudley Nichols’s intelligent if talky screenplay, Curtiz’s direction or Loyal Griggs’s black and white cinematography, and the music by Harry Sukman is outstanding.

Unfortunately, main star Taylor looks tired and uninvolved. But the short running time of 87 minutes is on its side.

Also in the cast are Tina Louise, Jack Lord, Fess Parker, Gene Evans, Mickey Shaughnessy, Shirley Harmer, James Westerfield, Betty Lynn, Jose Gonzales-Gonzales, Lorne Greene, Richard Collier and Mabel Albertson.

It was made in September 1958 at the Paramount Ranch, 2813 Cornell Road, Agoura, California; Old Tucson – 201 S. Kinney Road, Tucson, Arizona; and in the studio at Paramount Studios, 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9239

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