Fri 12 Jun 2015
A Western Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: HIDDEN GUNS (1956).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[4] Comments
HIDDEN GUNS. Republic, 1956. Bruce Bennett, Richard Arlen, Faron Young, John Carradine, Angie Dickinson. Written by Samuel Roeca and Al Gannaway. Director: Al Gannaway.
This ain’t much good, but it’s off-beat enough to keep you watching. Bruce Bennett stars as a slimy saloon owner, complete with fancy vest, a cadre of dog-heavies, and dreams of a western empire founded on the land he steals from honest folk. Richard Arlen is Sheriff Ward Young, trying to round up a witness to Bennett’s latest atrocity, and country singer Faron Young is his son Faron (get it?) Angie Dickinson is the pretty young heroine with not much to do.
Plot-wise, there may be a few surprises tossed into the formula, but it’s still a western-by-rote. The stunt work is up to the classic Republic standard, and the only real irritant is an off-screen chorus occasionally bursting into doggerel to sing us what we already know, like,
To tes-ti-fy,
And make a stand….â€
Blugh!
But Hidden Guns leaps out of the ordinary the minute John Carradine comes on, laughing it up as a hired gun named Snipe Harding, making corny jokes, bursting into song, and generally having a fun time, as in:
“Seven.”
“You should be ashamed! At your age, I was fourteen.”
Actually, some of Carradine’s dialogue is so good — and delivered with such relish — I suspect he may have written it himself (or borrowed it from his friend W. C. Fields) certainly nothing else in the writers’ or director’s oeuvre suggests such talent for bizarre zaniness.
The rest of the crowd is nothing but solid. Richard Arlen, a western stalwart since The Virginian (1929) is reliably heroic as the beleaguered lawman, Faron Young makes an adequate juvenile lead, and Angie Dickenson fills her nothing part rather well. Bruce Bennett plays his raffish baddie like an actor who knows he’s stuck in B-mnovies, and it adds an edge of nasty desperation that works here.
It’s Carradine’s show, though, and he makes a rather ordinary thing worthy of note.

June 12th, 2015 at 6:35 pm
John Carradine as a gunman with a sense of humor? I have to track this one down just to see that!!
June 12th, 2015 at 6:46 pm
I hadn’t even heard of this one. Big fan of Carradine.
June 12th, 2015 at 8:59 pm
This is one of those films that eventually killed the western saturating the market with material that despite the talent was only just above television level with stars past their prime and unknown youngsters (one here who made a film and television star). In 1956 there was still room for this fare on the big screen, but they would keep churning these out well beyond the sell by date.
This was not main feature fare, and likely played no major movie houses. Films like these were made as second features replacing B films (the last true B was in 1954 with Wayne Morris and a western appropriately)or drive in fodder for families who wouldn’t attend SF and creature features. Republic made money on these but by this point spent little on them.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Carradine’s performance, but I’m not sure I would have the heart to sit through Richard Arlen at this stage of his career much less Faron Young in the leads.
I’d watch it if it was on YouTube or late at night on television, but I don’t think I would buy it unless it showed up for $3.95 at the Dollar General or as one of a ten or twelve disc set.
Republic never made a bad western, but they weren’t all the same level of good.
September 24th, 2021 at 8:46 pm
[…] be worth mentioning that Faron Young played a character named Faron Young in Hidden Guns (reviewed here), where Richard Arlen played Sheriff Ward Young. Or maybe it’s not worth mentioning, in […]