Hell Bent for Leather (1960) / Posse from Hell (1961) / Showdown (1963)
BLU-RAY STREET DATE: AUGUST 15, 2023/KL STUDIO CLASSICS
Following the end of American World War II hero-turned-actor Audie Murphy’s contract run at Universal-International, he found himself back there for another cycle of Westerns. That arrangement came courtesy of competent low-budget producer George Kay, who teamed up with Murphy for seven quickly made Westerns over the next five years. Three of those seven films have been transferred to Blu-ray by KL Studio Classics and grouped for the label’s Audie Murphy Collection III box set. (Audie Murphy Collections I and II cover the Westerns of Murphy’s middle and early leading man careers, respectively). Below are my film-by-film reviews of Hell Bent for Leather (1960), Posse from Hell (1961), and Showdown (1963). All three are absolutely worthwhile for fan of Murphy and vintage studio Westerns; one, however, is a truly outstanding film that elevates the set beyond its predecessor.
Hell Bent for Leather
DIRECTED BY GEORGE SHERMAN/1960
Only somewhat pleasingly wide in its aspect ratio, pleasingly narrow in its story focus, and frustratingly televisual in its realization is 1960’s Hell Bent for Leather. Sprung from a 1959 novel called Outlaw Marshal by Ray Hogan, the film tells the tale of a good man (Audie Murphy) mistaken for a bad one and forced to go on the run because of it. He’s violently pursued by a whole town of reactionaries who are out for the blood of a criminal they’ve never seen but can very quickly identify that criminal’s unique double-barreled shotgun. Murphy’s character, the innocent Clay Santell, had the misfortune of not only getting jumped by that very criminal after offering him food and water, but picking up his trademark shotgun after he dropped it while riding away with Santell’s horse. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished… and that’s before everyone in the nearby town starts trying to kill him, sending him up the steep rocky Alabama Hills of Lone Pine, CA.
Fortunately for Santell, he winds up dragging townswoman Janet (Felicia Farr) along with him. It turns out that not only is Janet a willing hostage who’s easy on the eyes, but she happened to grow up in those very hills. They even eventually find themselves waylaid in her childhood home.
For a classic “wrong man” scenario that brings nothing particularly new to the table, Hell Bent for Leathermanages well enough to keep viewers engaged. From the first overcooked musical sting (courtesy of Irving Gertz & William Lava) when Murphy first turns around in close-up, it’s obvious that this is a particularly arch Western. For a film with a 2.35:1 frame, director George Sherman makes the strange visual choice to, at times, shoot characters in extreme close-up. Television production was hot on the minds of the powers that be at U-I, but when it comes to a sprawling Western such as this, such small screen aesthetics ought to stay in their box.
On the Blu-ray’s newly recorded audio commentary track, film historian Toby Roan tells us all about the behind-the-scenes arrangements that enabled this film and the wave of Murphy Universal-International titles that followed it. Roan’s commentary is super-heavy on bullet point-style biographical information and filmographies of whoever’s turn it is to be covered. When most of the people have been discussed, Roan turns his attention to giving backstory and trivia on the studio, the locations, and more. This aspect of the track is, quite frankly, dull. Most of this info can easily be sourced online without much effort. Analysis of the film is not entirely nonexistent, though Roan’s defense of George Sherman as an underrated director basically comes down to his ability to use the camera to visually compliment the storytelling- a strictly baseline part of the job. He does, however, make the point that “Hell Bent for Leather is a modest little Western that just plain works”. Roan, in his complimentary tone, is dead right about that.
Roan mentions that there were hopes of George Sherman/Audie Murphy becoming another Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott, working together in short order to create a run of respectable low-budget Westerns. That didn’t happen, as Sherman departed the arrangement; Roan goes on to give several possible reasons as to why.
For my money, Hell Bent for Leather works almost in spite of itself and must be viewed as a kind of melodrama wherein everyone but the protagonists appear red and clammy and speak in sharp, barbed jabs. One wonders if this is truly what Sherman was after. Visually, the Alabama Hills make for effective terrain for the movie’s extended chase to play out. Sherman wrings a few impressive shots from this as Hell Bent is the last Murphy U-I Western to be shot in nice wide CinemaScope.
Posse from Hell
DIRECTED BY HERBERT COLEMAN/1961
Herbert Coleman only directed a couple features, the 1961 Audie Murphy starrer Posse from Hell being one of them. Immediately, two things are evident: 1.) It’s a real shame that this guy didn’t direct more movies, and 2.) It’s quite clear that he learned a thing or two about visual storytelling from his mentor, cohort, and associate, Alfred Hitchcock.
While Coleman’s own theatrical directorial credits are very few, his expanded filmography contains the likes of Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and many more, all of which he was associate producer and/or second unit director. With Posse from Hell, he stakes a claim that Hitchcock never would or could: helming a Western.
And what a Western it is. From the film’s early moments, it’s immediately evident that Posse from Hell ups the quality threshold of Audie Murphy Collection III. The rest of the film follows suit entirely, making for one of Murphy’s finest and boldest outings. This is a darker and weightier film than fans of the actor would’ve been used to seeing him in, perhaps by a significant measure.
The film opens with a harrowing saloon hold-up by a foursome of violent interlopers in which several prominent townsfolk (portrayed by stalwart Western actors) are casually murdered. It’s all a smokescreen for a bank robbery that brazenly occurs nearby. The film wields the impressively casual audacity to let that important bit play out off screen. In the tumult, the respected town marshal is among the murdered. His dying act is to charge his deputy, Banner Cole (Murphy) with “doing the right thing.” For Cole, that means riding out to bring justice to the perpetrators. It’s quite clear that in this instance, the line between justice and revenge is blurred at best.
Audio commentarian C. Courtney Joyner, on his terrific track with film historian Henry Parke, observes that despite its somewhat generic outward appearance, this is no cliche “deserted dog trot” of a town. It’s a rightly grizzly place, populated with denizens to match. Cole is stuck with a posse of varying ineptitude and motivations. One particularly difficult member (Royal Dano) is along for the retrieval of his niece Helen (a compelling Zohra Lampert), a young woman who was in the wrong place (the held-up saloon) at the wrong time (during the hold-up) and was snatched away by the villains.
When Helen is recovered, Posse from Hell makes no secret of why the men took her and how brutally horrible it was for her. Like Budd Boetticher’s 1960 Comanche Station (unjustly among the most underappreciated of that director’s legendary run of Westerns with an aging Randolph Scott), the fact that the film makes a point having the male protagonist reassure the rape victim that she is in no way “ruined” flags such underlying alarming assumptions as much-needed points of reconciliation for the broader contemporary culture.
John Saxon, then a youthful contract player at U-I, plays a dapper and proper New York City banker who is reluctantly tasked with protecting the bank’s money when and if it’s reclaimed. His transition from useless “big city boy” suffering from saddle sores to rugged rider for what’s morally right is a predictable one, but Saxon makes it fully compelling. Murphy as Cole is quietly detached all the while, and likely with good reason. The Brokeback Mountain vibes between him and the dying marshal may not be overt, but they’re there. Cole spends the whole film in a state of sad, internalized personal rage, the kind a surviving lover would harbor.
Posse from Hell also features Vic Morrow, Robert Keith, Rodolfo Acosta, Paul Carr, and Lee Van Cleef, and more. None of them are wasted. In keeping with its low budget limitations, the score is an expertly cobbled-together amalgamation, pulling from some of the studio’s finest sci-fi and horror films of the time. It is one of Murphy’s finest performances; a hell of a film that still plays exceptionally well.
Showdown
DIRECTED BY R.G. SPRINGSTEEN/1963
Like one of those unsaddled nondescript horses just hanging around munching straw at the corral, 1963’s Showdown may not look like much at first. Yet, when Audie Murphy runs up, hops on, and kicks it into high gear, the thing really takes off.
Showdown, a Western not to be confused with the 1973 Dean Martin/Rock Hudson Western of the same title, nor any of the numerous other movies bearing the unfortunately generic title, arrives during Murphy’s later-career run of films for producer Gordon Kay at Universal-International. Shot rather generically in unassuming black and white, director R.G. Springsteen’s film could, at a glance, initially be mistaken for any number of Western TV episodes so popular at the time.
The obvious shift to monochromatic from the glorious Technicolor norm is seemingly a step down for the Kay/Murphy cycle. And, insofar as it was reportedly a cost-cutting measure rather than a creative one, it was indeed just that- much to the chagrin of its star. Yet, wielding a steadfast screenplay by Ric Hardman, who’s credited onscreen with the amusingly overcompensating nom de plume “Bronson Howitzer”, Showdown is a solid seventy-nine minutes of surprisingly creative scenarios and twists you don’t see coming.
Murphy plays Chris Foster, an ethical cowboy content to keep to his own matters. When his riding partner and friend Bert Pickett (Charles Drake) stirs up trouble in a bar during their otherwise mundane trip into town, they find themselves locked up with the local ne’er do wells. One of Showdown’s interesting flourishes is that the town lockup is a tall post in the town square with individual chained collars attached to the tip top, kind of like a maypole of shame. Almost as though a creative screenwriter gave them the idea, the prisoners come up with a way to weaponize this set-up to their advantage.
Amid the ensuing chaotic kerfuffle, Bert manages to swipe a stack of negotiable bonds. While we always suspect that Chris’ loyalty to Bert isn’t exactly equally reciprocated, the way the story never quite lets us know for sure is intriguing… probably intriguing beyond its pay grade. A pack of conniving roughs capture Bert and Chris (still stuck in iron collars from the prison break, though with their chains severed) to steal the bond money, which screws up Bert’s plan to finally send some much-needed funds to his abandoned love, Estelle.
Estelle (Kathleen Crowley), it turns out, has been reduced to working as a saloon girl in a watering hole called Ring’s. In this case, a ring is just another kind of shackle, albeit less physically weighty and cumbersome. It is, though, no less imprisoning. Estelle, hardened and self-determined, is ready at a moment’s notice to move on… alone. She ends up caught in the bond cashing mess with Chris, who the bad guys are forced to trust as he’s the only one who can show his face in a bank and not get arrested again. “Well, what suits you better?”, he asks them as they debate sending him. “Two dead men or a shot at the money?”
Unfortunately, Showdown is the first of any of KL Studio Classics’ Audie Murphy Collection titles to lack any significant bonus features. So, no commentary to enlighten us as to what exactly went down in the making of this one, or why. (All three discs do feature newly mastered 2K theatrical trailers for their respective films). Quick outside research reveals that Showdown’s initial title was “The Iron Collar”. Why it changed to its terminally “meh” title isn’t mentioned. Thankfully, Showdown is nowhere nearly as meh as it initially presents itself.