The Trouble Shooter (1955)
"Man with the Gun" (original title)

When a notorious tough 'town tamer' is hired by the citizenry to rid of the gunmen driving them off their land, he finds the local saloon madam to be an old friend.

Director:

Richard Wilson

Writers:

N.B. Stone Jr. (story), Richard Wilson (story)

Stars:

Robert Mitchum, Jan Sterling, Karen Sharpe

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Robert Mitchum	...	Clint Tollinger
Jan Sterling	...	Nelly Bain
Karen Sharpe	...	Stella Atkins
Henry Hull	...	Marshal Lee Sims
Emile Meyer	...	Saul Atkins
John Lupton	...	Jeff Castle
Barbara Lawrence	...	Ann Wakefield
Ted de Corsia	...	'Frenchy' Lescaux (as Ted DeCorsia)
Leo Gordon	...	Ed Pinchot
James Westerfield	...	Mr. Zender (drummer)

Storyline

A stranger comes to town looking for his estranged wife. He finds her running the local girls. He also finds a town and sheriff afraid of their own shadow, scared of a landowner they never see who rules through his rowdy sidekicks. The stranger is a town tamer by trade, and he accepts a $500 commission to sort things out.

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Plot Keywords:

town tamer | sheriff | saloon | ex boyfriend ex girlfriend relationship | outlaw | 

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Taglines:

His Gun Was For Sale...And His Life With It!

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Genres:

Western

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 November 1955 (USA)

Also Known As:

Deadly Peacemaker

Filming Locations:

Samuel Goldwyn Studios - 7200 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Formosa Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

First production of Samuel Goldwyn Jr.

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Quotes

Jeff Castle: You figure you can tidy up a town single-handed, Mr. Tollinger?
Clint Tollinger: With a little bit of luck, yes.
Saul Atkins: He's been a hundred percent lucky and when it adds up like that, it ain't luck.

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Connections

Referenced in Get a Life: The Big City (1991)

User Reviews

Robert Mitchum is......Man With The Gun.

Clint Tollinger arrives in a small town looking for his estranged wife and news of his daughter, tho he finds her, the chance of any sort of reconciliation is very slim. Whilst here, the sheriff and the important townsfolk learn of Tollinger's reputation as a pistol specialist town tamer. As they are living in fear of a mysterious landowner who is stripping the town from them bit by bit, they hold a meeting that chooses to hire Tollinger to rid the town of it's unsavoury elements.

Man With The Gun seems to be either a forgotten piece or a vastly under seen one, at the time of me writing this, it has just over 200 votes and a paltry 9 user comments written for it on IMDb. It's a shame on either score because although the production values scream out that this is a B movie Western, this is a fine entry in the Western genre. That the piece takes on a rather standard plot theme of an harangued town turning to an avenging dark angel, probably hasn't done the film any favours over the years, I myself read the synopsis and thought it's just another in the line of similarly themed pictures. Yet I was pleasantly surprised to find a darkly dramatic picture boasting many enjoyable moments, both technically and as a functioning story.

Robert Mitchum is in the lead as Tollinger, perfectly cast, he strides thru the picture like some brooding menace. We often talk about the screen presence that John Wayne and Charlton Heston had (justifiably of course), Mitchum is right up there with the best of them. One sequence here sees him standing in the shadows at the back of a room as a meeting takes place, we don't see his face, but we can feel that piercing brood staring out at us! The rest of the cast are also very much in Mitchum's shadow, so really it's solely with the big man that the film's acting credentials are high, perhaps it's unfair to single out Ted de Corsia for a kick, but Man With The Gun's minor failings are with its villains, and sadly de Corsia is lacking any sort of villainesque menace. The score from Alex North is excellently layered (fans of Spartacus will certainly be pricking their ears up) and the cinematography from Lee Garmes is highly impressive when one realises that the majority of this picture was shot on the studio lot. Directed and co-written by first time director Richard Wilson, Man With The Gun holds few surprises for the genre, but it's dark in tone, violent and above all else, highly watchable. 7.5/10