Three Desperate Men (1951) User Reviews

Denton Family Values

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 25 November 2011]

Only a lack of production values prevents me from giving this Lippert Production a higher rating. Three Desperate Men is an outstanding B western that stars Preston Foster, Jim Davis and Ross Latimer as the Denton brothers, read Dalton Brothers.

Foster and Davis are earning a living in Texas as honest lawmen and learn that their brother Latimer has been arrested in another state on a train robbery charge he couldn't possibly have committed since he was with them. They ride with evidence to clear him before he hangs, but the railroad agent Rory Mallinson is a vicious sort who tries to send them out of town before the hanging. They spring Latimer, but a deputy is killed. After that they're all hunted outlaws.

Although the film is short it packs quite a lot of action in its 70 minute time frame. In the supporting cast note a pair of good performances from Monte Blue as the former marshal who employed Foster and Davis and now has to track them down and from William Haade who may have his career role in this film as the amiable outlaw whom Foster and Davis once hunted and who now joins with them.

There is also a bittersweet romance with Virginia Grey and Foster that also ends badly. As for the ending itself Denton is an alias for Dalton and we know how it ended for those brothers.

One of the best films I've seen from Lippert and that's not just comparatively speaking.

The road to crime is paved with crimes against.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 4 January 2021]

That's the theme of this Lippert western, one step barely above poverty row but a bit more technically proficient. This deals with a fictionalized version of the Dalton gang, renamed the Denton's, and brothers Preston Foster and Jim Davis are law enforcement officials who come to rescue their brother Kim Spalding from being hung. Breaking the law to get him out of the hangman's noose, Foster and Davis must now break the law to survive, and are even aided by criminals they once put bounties on.

Pleasant enough low budget western with former MGM contract player Virginia Grey as the strong woman who continues to love Foster in spite of everything. Nice montages and fades aide this in looking classy, and it's filled with action. There's not much in the way of chases or shootouts, so it's nice that they found other ways to make this action packed.

Veteran comic Sid Melton (best known to modern audiences as Sophia's dead husband Sal on "Golden Girls") has a nice scene as a telegraph clerk. Character actress Margaret Seddon (one of the wacky spinster sisters in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town") is an absolute sweet Ma Denton. Easy to get through, and certainly a lot better than a good majority of the D grade westerns I've seen, but outside of the things I praise here, easy to forget that you've seen it.

Three brothers find the hard way theft is no solution

[adrianovasconcelos · 7/10 · 22 May 2023]

Director Sam Newfield does a useful job of bringing this unusual script to life with generally very good performances from the three desperate brothers, with Preston Foster at the head.

I thought for a while that Larkin, the Wells Fargo detective who detained the younger of the three brothers and had him quickly tried and put on the gallows to hang, was the actual brain behind the robberies that the three brothers stand accused of, after they manage to spring their brother from the noose.

Beautiful Virginia Grey is the love interest but somehow disappears from the film as the three desperadoes step up their robbery rate.

Some great horse chases, nifty final shootout.

THREE DESPERATE MEN has flaws, but it has surprises too. Good old Preston accepting so readily to rob banks so he can get away from a life of crime provides the heart of the brothers' dilemma.

Worth watching.