SHOWDOWN AT BOOT HILL (1958) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Gene Fowler Jr.
Charles Bronson, John Carradine, Fintan Meyler,
Robert Hutton, Paul Maxey, Argentina Brunetti
This is exactly the kind of movie that would've slipped through the cracks in the 1950s, playing on the bottom half of a drive-in double feature. Charles Bronson, still doing mostly secondary roles and television work, plays a U.S. marshall who rides into town to serve an arrest warrant and wears out his welcome instantly by killing the wanted man - a respected local citizen - in a gunfight. The townspeople want the marshall dead or worse, but he sticks around because there's a pretty young lady serving meals over at the hotel, and because he still wants to collect the $200 reward. There's a showdown at Boot Hill eventually, but it's not what you'd expect in a movie called "Showdown At Boot Hill". The underlying themes - fear and loneliness - are not what you'd expect, either. Bronson, who was a commanding screen presence long before he made the A list, has the lethal restraint of a coiled rattlesnake, while John Carradine, doing brisk business as the community's barber, doctor, preacher and undertaker, provides colorful and (for him, anyway) understated support.
