Sat 28 Apr 2012
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: Four RORY CALHOUN Westerns.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[5] Comments
Dawn at Socorro (1954), a thinly-veiled Earp/Clanton drama, covers much of the same ground as OK Corral and Hour of the Gun, with a fraction of the time and pretension. Rory Calhoun is the Doc Holliday figure, Alec Nicol is Johnny Ringo, and Lee Van Cleef is the last surviving Clanton.
There’s a nice bit where Van Cleef arrives at a Swing Station to ambush the stage carrying Calhoun. As the stage draws near, he turns to the Station Man, jacks a round into his Winchester and says something like “My name’s Billy Clanton. Be sure and tell everyone you saw me kill Doc Holliday.”
Footage of Calhoun offing the baddies in this film (Gee, hope I didn’t spoil the suspense!) was later used as flashbacks in Red Sundown (1956), directed by Jack Arnold with his customary flair for violence.
Domino Kid (1957) features Calhoun as the guy out to get the men who killed his parents and looted their ranch while he was off to War. It starts out very fast and interesting, with fine cameos of two of the baddies, played by Roy Barcroft, fatalistically toasting his opponent before the gunfight, and James Griffith, psychotically snarling and justifying his actions as Frontier Law.
This lasts about the first 20 minutes, and then the action just sort of stops. Dead in its tracks. Disappointing, but the first part is still quite nice.
Four Guns to the Border (1954) is a Western Caper film, with Calhoun the head of a gang that includes Jay Silverheels, George Nader, and John McIntire. Their plan is to visit the town that Calhoun was run out of years ago by his erstwhile gunbuddy, the gutless Charles Drake, and rob the bank while everybody’s gathered at the stables watching Calhoun and Drake duke it out.
There’s lots of moody, tenseful waiting around at a Swing Station outside of town, and what looks like a very grim climax indeed — at first.
Calhoun wrote the script for an interesting Western, Shotgun (1955) featuring Sterling Hayden, Zachary Scott and Yvonne De Carlo, but his last good oater was The Gun Hawk, where he’s a wounded, burned-out gunfighter pursued by Sheriff Rod Cameron. In this one he gets the chance to reprise the ending of Four Guns to the Border and bring it to its logical conclusion.
â— DAWN AT SOCORRO. Universal International, 1954. Rory Calhoun, Piper Laurie, David Brian, Kathleen Hughes, Alex Nicol, Edgar Buchanan, Mara Corday, James Millican, Lee Van Cleef. Director: George Sherman.
â— DOMINO KID. Columbia Pictures (1957). Rory Calhoun, Kristine Miller, Andrew Duggan, Yvette Duguay, Peter Whitney, Roy Barcroft, James Griffith (the latter two uncredited). Director: Ray Nazarro.
â— FOUR GUNS TO THE BORDER. Universal International, 1954. Rory Calhoun, Colleen Miller, George Nader, Walter Brennan, Nina Foch, John McIntire, Charles Drake, Jay Silverheels, Nestor Paiva. Based on a story by Louis L’Amour. Director: Richard Carlson.
â— THE GUN HAWK. Allied Artists, 1963. Rory Calhoun, Rod Cameron, Ruta Lee, Rod Lauren, Morgan Woodward, Robert J. Wilke, John Litel. Director: Edward Ludwig.
NOTE: Dan reviewed The Gun Hawk at much greater length here earlier on this blog. Another Rory Calhoun western recently reviewed by Dan was The Silver Whip. This post is a continuation of that one. You may go back and find it here.
April 30th, 2012 at 9:25 am
As I was growing up in the late 40 and through the 50s, until maybe my midteens or later, my brother and I usually saw a western movie every weekend, and sometimes two, all year round, at one or both of the two movie theaters in town.
Not just the B-western heroes (Roy, Gene, Durango and so on) but westerns with higher aspirations, you might say, like these with Rory Calhoun. Not that I remember them, but there’s no way I missed all four of these, back then. Rory Calhoun wouldn’t have been one of my favorite western stars, but if it was a western, we went to see it.
I haven’t checked to see if any of these are available on DVD, but I’m sure they are, even without official releases. Maybe it’s time to move up to watching movies from the 50s, rather than the long run of ones from the 30s and 40s that I have been playing.
April 30th, 2012 at 9:32 am
And after posting that previous comment, I sat here thinking, why was it that Rory Calhoun wouldn’t have been one of my favorite western movie stars.
I haven’t thought about it long enough, maybe, but that black and white photo I included gives me a glimmer of an idea. He was a little too scowly, I think. He never seemed to be having as much fun being a western movie star as Roy, Gene and Durango.
Times were changing, and in the 1950s, so were western movies. Maybe at the time I wasn’t flexible enough to change with them.
May 1st, 2012 at 8:11 am
Thanks. Enjoyed this. I don’t think of Calhoun as a western actor either. More of a matinee idol, but then that’s a kid’s memory of the man.
May 15th, 2014 at 11:02 pm
I have always liked Rory, probably since I meet him and Marilyn on a movie set when so was about four years old. The film was A Ticket to Tomahawk and was on location on our ranch near Durango Colo. Tonight Watching The Domino Kid released in 1957. Just another old Western on EWSTN. What a change those old movies are. Rory also was a producer and actor.
April 27th, 2017 at 2:23 am
Saw “Dawn At Socorro” last night on cable western channel. Really enjoyed it. Rory was at his western swashbuckling best and Piper was great eye candy. Don’t know why some folks panned this one, it kept me involved through the entire flick. Got to looking at his somewhat early demise at 76 from emphysema and diabetes and then at some internet photos and almost every non posed photo of him shows a cigarette in his hand. Too bad, he might have lived another 10 or 15 years if not for that. RIP Rory, I hope that you were right with your favorite autograph encryption which was “The best is yet to come”.