Hidden Guns (1956)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

Albert C. Gannaway

Writers:

Albert C. Gannaway (writer)
Samuel Roeca (writer)

Release Date:

30 January 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Plot:

The outlaw Stragg has the town so intimidated that no one will speak against him no matter what he does...

Plot Keywords:

Outlaw | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Bruce Bennett	...	Stragg
Richard Arlen	...	Sheriff Ward Young
John Carradine	...	Snipe Harding
Faron Young	...	Deputy Faron Young
Lloyd Corrigan	...	Judge Wallis
Angie Dickinson	...	Becky Carter
Damian O'Flynn	...	Kingsley
Irving Bacon	...	Doc Carter
Tom Hubbard	...	Grundy
Ron Kennedy	...	Burt Miller
Bill Ward	...	Joe Miller
Lee Morgan	...	Emmett (as Raymond L. Morgan)
Edmund Cobb	...	Ben Williams
Ben Welden	...	Peabody
Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams	...	Fiddler

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Republic Pictures (I)

Decent Story With Good Villainy From Carradine

For a straightforward Western with no frills, "Hidden Guns" has some positive features. It has a decent story and features some entertaining acting by John Carradine as one of the villains.

The story concerns the efforts of Sheriff Ward Young (Richard Arlen) and his deputy/son to stop the outrages of an outlaw named Stragg (Bruce Bennett), who has the rest of the town too intimidated to speak against him. The sheriff heads to another town nearby, where there is a witness who might be willing to speak against Stragg. Meanwhile, Stragg has sent a henchman to the same town to hire a gunman (Carradine) to deal with the witness and the sheriff. It's a fairly conventional setup, but it plays out with a couple of interesting developments.

The characters are all standard Western types, but things perk up when Carradine comes in as the gunman. His performance is quite exaggerated compared to the rest of the cast, but he makes his character pretty entertaining. Look also for a young Angie Dickinson in a few scenes as the daughter of the town doctor. Country singer Faron Young plays the sheriff's son. Young is not much of an actor, but his presence enables him to provide singing commentary between key scenes - an interesting idea, although it gets a bit old.

Though routine in many respects, "Hidden Guns" should have enough to make it worth watching for most Western fans.