The Stranger Wore a Gun *** (1953, Randolph Scott, George Macready, Claire Trevor, Joan Weldon, Alfonso Bedoya, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine) – Classic Movie Review 6687

Randolph Scott – ‘greater than ever in 3D’ – stars as Jeff Travis, a law-abiding citizen who spies for Quantrill’s raiders during the Civil War and then flees to Arizona, where he is forced into a life of crime when repaying a debt to gang boss Jules Mourret (George Macready), the hoodlum who once saved his life.

Director André De Toth’s 1953 The Stranger Wore a Gun is a standard Randolph Scott Western, but with a decent script by Kenneth Gamet based on the novel Yankee Gold by John W Cunningham, with an interesting twist, and an excellent cast of crusty old hands. George Macready, Claire Trevor and Joan Weldon co-star, while Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine make their respective strong presences felt in lesser but still significant roles as Dan Kurth and Bull Slager.

It was 1953 and 3D was in its original heyday. Ironically, as De Toth only had one eye, he is shooting in a process he could never be able to see the on-screen result of. Ironically, too, his best known film is the Vincent Price horror film House of Wax (1953), also shot in 3D, and it is one of the most famous of the Fifties 3D movies.

But in The Stranger Wore a Gun, without the advantage of being able to see the addition of the original 3D effects, the strictly screen-bound action is revealed to be – unsurprisingly – based around sending objects hurtling towards the screen.

Also in the cast are Alfonso Bedoya, Pierre Watkin, Joseph Vitale, Clem Bevans, Roscoe Ates, Edward Earle, Edith Evanson, Franklyn Farnum, Terry Frost, Frank Hagney, George Bruggeman, Bob Burns, Carol Henry, Al Hill, Reed Howes, Mike Lally, James Millican, Forbes Murray, Artie Ortego, Jack Perrin, ‘Snub’ Pollard, Jack Mower and Guy Wilkerson.

The Stranger Wore a Gun is directed by André de Toth, runs 83 minutes, is a Columbia release, is written by Kenneth Gamet, shot in 3D, Technicolor and widescreen by Lester H White, produced by Harry Joe Brown, scored by Mischa Bakaleinikoff and designed by George Brooks.

André De Toth (1913–2002).

André de Toth was born as Sasvári Farkasfalvi Tóthfalusi Tóth Endre Antal Mihály in Hungary where he directed a few films before the outbreak of World War Two, when he fled to England.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6687

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