REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:         


THE SILVER WHIP Rory Calhoun

THE SILVER WHIP. 20th Century-Fox, 1953. Dale Robertson, Rory Calhoun, Robert Wagner, Kathleen Crowley, James Millican, Lola Albright. Based on the novel First Blood (1953) by Jack Schaefer. Director: Harmon Jones.

   Been a mess o’ Rory Calhoun movies on lately, some pretty good. Calhoun was always the City Slicker’s idea of a Cowboy: Cool, well-groomed, morally ambiguous, often even the Heavy of the Piece, as in The Spoilers or River of No Return, but always playing his cards close to his vest in any case, his calculating eyes clearly on the Main Chance. Not a Great Actor by any stretch, but within his range quite competent and even memorable on occasion.

   Later on he began doing cameos in intriguing B-flicks like Angel, Hell Comes to Frogtown, Motel Hell, and Roller Blade Warriors, all of which are better than they sound, which is faint praise, I know, but well-intended. They’re worth a look, as is:

   The Silver Whip, an occasionally interesting western with Calhoun as a rough but proper Sheriff, Dale Robertson — incredibly macho-looking — as his less legal-minded but heroic buddy, and Robert Wagner as the identity-seeking youth torn between the two role models.

THE SILVER WHIP Rory Calhoun

   There’s a fascinating bit of action where the three heroes are stalking the heavy across the badlands, a picturesque location all by itself, with boulders, crevices, arches and cave in a baroque panoply. You’ll see one of the characters move across this arresting background, dodging from cover to cover, moving from long-shot to close-up.

   Then, as he takes off, the camera stays where it is, and in the background you see one of the other heroes, previously obscured by the character in foreground, still half-hidden among the rocks, and follow him as he moves across the terrain from cover to cover, the camera tracking along and closer to him until he ends up in close-up, takes off again, and the camera stays put and in the background we see another hero, previously obscured by the character in foreground, still half-hidden etc. etc.

   This goes on long enough to get really entertaining.

THE SILVER WHIP Rory Calhoun


Coming Soon to This Blog:   Several more Rory Calhoun movie reviews by Dan, including (wait for it) Hell Comes to Frogtown.