Sun 26 Jan 2014
Archived Western Movie Review: THE PARSON AND THE OUTLAW (1957).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[11] Comments
THE PARSON AND THE OUTLAW. Columbia Pictures, 1957. Anthony Dexter, Sonny Tufts, Marie Windsor, Buddy Rogers, Bob Steel(e). Director: Oliver Drake.
Yet another fictional distortion of the legend of Billy the Kid, but one in which I have to admit a really neat twist takes place. It seems that what really happened was this: Pat Garrett and Billy got together on a plot that would leave Billy “dead” and buried, free to begin a new life, one without the need to constantly prove himself to every new gunfighter in town.
This all takes place in the first ten minutes, so I’m not telling you all that I could, but unfortunately, it is the most interesting ten minutes of the movie — as maybe you could tell from just a single glance at the cast.
Marie Windsor excepted, of course.
As Billy the Kid, Anthony Dexter has no acting ability, no looks, and is minus 30 on the standard Sonny Tufts charisma scale. (Which means that Sonny Tufts has 30 times the charm and charisma of Anthony Dexter, as displayed in this movie.)
On the other hand, no movie with Marie Windsor in it is ever a complete waste of time, but a few of them come close, and even fewer of them come closer than this.
And what other movie can you think of would have the parson, a man of the cloth, begging Billy to put his guns back on, for the sake of the town. (It works out even worse than you might think.)
January 26th, 2014 at 11:18 am
I like Sunny Tufts work and always have. Unfamiliar with this film, but in any of his forties films, and certainly in Come Next Spring (1956) he is just fine. Marie Windsor mostly left me cold throughout her career, but any film with Bob Steele should be worth a look. And, Mary Pickford produced.
January 26th, 2014 at 12:57 pm
Mary Pickford! I was wondering how Buddy Rogers came to be in the cast — now I know.
January 26th, 2014 at 1:43 pm
Mary Pickford doesn’t get credit as the producer on either IMDb or the AFI catalog. According to IMDb:
Produced by Bob Gilbert, executive producer (as Robert Gilbert)
Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, producer.
It was Rogers who played the Parson.
I may have to see Sonny Tufts in another film (I haven’t recently). Obviously I was not impressed with his performance when I wrote this review, which was sometime late in 1991.
Barry, we will have to agree to disagree when its comes to Marie Windsor, one of my favorite noir and low budget film actresses, but we are in complete agreement re Bob Steele (whose name was misspelled without the final “e” in the credits).
January 26th, 2014 at 2:23 pm
IMDB can help tracking things down and is fun, but certainly not definitive. Mary’s involvement can be tracked from various sources, I just happen to remember the press release(s) prior to production.
Personal aside. In about two weeks I will be going in for Hernia Repair via the laparoscopic approach. Presuming that goes well my intention is to launch myself professionally. Again. Probably staying in Canada but likely Toronto. In the back of my mind is a return to the United States. Why, I don’t know, but how is life in Connecticut?
January 27th, 2014 at 4:54 am
Sonny Tufts had a great scene in the ’46 film of THE VIRGINIAN, and he handled it well. He will probably be always remembered however for his other teaming with Marie Windsor, CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON.
January 27th, 2014 at 9:47 am
Dan,
He was wonderful in The Virginian. And, in Easy Living. Many more. Hard to be effective in something that is just awful.
January 27th, 2014 at 11:25 am
One of Sonny Tufts’s later appearances was on The Virginian – the TV series.
This was a flashback episode, about how Trampas (Doug McClure) came to work for Judge Garth (Lee J. Cobb) at the Shiloh ranch.
Sonny Tufts played Trampas’s father, who got into a beef with the Judge, who was forced to kill him in self-defense; you can fill in the rest of the story from there.
That aside, Tufts’s connection to the earlier film got the show some good press, and those few critics who ever reviewed a series after its premiere gave Sonny some pretty good write-ups for his brief role.
Sadly, nobody in the business seemed to follow up on this, and Sonny Tufts went back to being a running gag on Rocky & Bullwinkle (he was Bullwinkle’s favorite film star).
I think that one of the last things he did was a string of one-liners for Laugh-In, spoofing the old Joseph Cotten story about reactions to his name.
January 27th, 2014 at 12:05 pm
I think his lifestyle made employment too much of an adventure for most production outfits.
January 27th, 2014 at 4:14 pm
Sonny Tufts did indeed do some good work, but all play and no work does begin to show, and while he was attractive enough on screen he didn’t have leading men screen presence.
He was in on the joke to some extent though if you remember his appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
He’s very good in SO PROUDLY WE HAIL and has a nice part in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH too.
And I have to admit I would never have suspected he started out in opera and auditioned for the Met.
Barry,
“Any movie with Bob Steele …”
Dead on.
August 30th, 2015 at 6:10 am
Buddy Rogers, longtime husband of Mary Pickford produced and appeared for the last time in this movie. His acting career had mostly ended in the early thirties. Sonny Tufts was a standing joke in Hollywood, mainly for his amorous exploits and drunken brawling. Nobody ever took his acting seriously. His role in Seven Year Itch has a definite subtext. He is an aging,snobbish roue, whom Tom Ewell imagines to be romancing his wife.Ewell ends up by punching him in the face. This is all an in joke comment on Mr. Tufts real life reputation.
January 15th, 2024 at 10:29 am
Does Mary Pickford have an uncredited appearance in the movie? Is that her at the end, cradling the dead parson in her arms? What I do know is Mary is owned comet pictures, a studio she formed to work with Columbia pictures. At around the same time or shortly after, she sold her shares in United artists