The Fiend Who Walked the West (1958)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Gordon Douglas

Writers:

Ben Hecht (1947 screenplays)
Charles Lederer (1947 screenplays)

Release Date:

1 August 1958 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

DON'T BE ASHAMED TO SCREAM! Everyone in the theatre will be screaming with you!

Plot:

In this western remake of Kiss of Death (1947), a convicted bank robber serving his sentence, and wishing...

Plot Keywords:

Remake | Prison | Place Name In Title | Killing Spree | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Robert Evans	...	Felix Griffin
Hugh O'Brian	...	Daniel Slade Hardy
Linda Cristal	...	Ellen Hardy
Stephen McNally	...	Marshal Frank Emmett
Edward Andrews	...	Judge Parker
Shari Lee Bernath	...	Janie Hardy
Dolores Michaels	...	May Matthewson
Ken Scott	...	Paul Finney (robbery leader)
Ron Ely	...	Deputy Jim Dyer
Emile Meyer	...	Ames, Head Prison Guard
Gregory Morton	...	Gage (defense attorney)
June Blair

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

West Germany:18 | Finland:(Banned) (1958) | Sweden:15

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

In his autobiography, "The Kid Stays in the Picture," Robert Evans says that this movie had the following working titles: "The Hell-Bent Kid", "Rope Law", "Enough Rope", "Quick Draw", "Quick Draw at Red Rock", and "The Hell-Bent Kid II". This mistakenly created the impression that Evans was appearing in more films than he actually was. The final title came from a marketing exec trying to cater to both western and horror film audiences.

Movie Connections:

Edited into The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002)

Torpedoed by a crass central performance

There is a minor tradition of remaking crime movies for the Western genre."The Badlanders"is a retread of "The Asphalt Jungle"while "Colorado Territory"is a remake of "High Sierra".

"The Fiend Who Walked The West"is "Kiss of Death"in Western clothing and is almost a splendid movie.Hugh OBrian is "Daniel Slade Hardy" a decent gangster/outlaw who wants to go straight and turns to criminality only to keep his family fed.While in prison he confides in his deranged cellmate "Felix Griffin"the location of a cache of stolen money.Griffin on release tracks down and kills one of the robbers and slays his mother before terrorising Hardy's wife.Hardy is set free-in the guise of an escape-to bring the now out of control Griffin to justice

The problem is not the script,direction(by the under-rated Gordon Douglas)or the acting by seasoned performers like OBrian and McNally(playing the sympathetic lawman but a performance of utter inadequacy by Robert Evans as Griffin.Where Richard Widmark in the original induced fear and loathing all that Evans evokes is a desire to laugh.Pouting prettily and assuming sub James Dean stances does not constitute acting and merely suggests a poor imitation of an poor actor.(The influence of James Dean on screen acting was wholly negative)If your villain comes over as a pouting pretty boy who needs a sound spanking then your movie is in trouble

Its atmospheric,violent for its day and all the ingredients bar one -a credible actor in the pivotal role are in place.This lack mars the whole piece