The Black Whip (1956) User Reviews

Learned their trade from Quantrill

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 16 December 2014]

Watching The Black Whip I saw elements of Key Largo, Suddenly, and Rawhide in this independent film released by 20th Century Fox. It was a decent if not outstanding mix.

One of four saloon girls Coleen Gray, Angie Dickinson, Dorothy Schuyler, and Adele Mara put on a veil and sprung a prisoner, a member of the notorious black legs, former Confederate raiders who learned their trade under Quantrill and now operate on their own. The sheriff puts them in a wagon driven by Strother Martin and says dump them anywhere someone will have them. Not so easy as word gets out, no one wants to mess with Black Legs.

But time and circumstance force them to a stagecoach station in a ghost town operated by Hugh Marlowe and brother Richard Gilden. The Black Legs arrive soon enough and hold them hostage.

The leader is Paul Richards who has some plans of his own, he's not at the stagecoach station by chance. He and Marlowe have some history which makes the waiting interesting.

This is where the title comes from. Richards doesn't even carry a gun. He carries The Black Whip and he's pretty deadly with it. Somehow getting a whipping in many ways is worse than getting killed by a fast draw. Elements of sadism present here in abundance. Even Lash LaRue carried a pistol as well.

Richards is a fascinating villain. He played many a villainous part in his career, some with a touch of madness about them. He had a southern accent that was part of his working equipment as a player. He uses it well here and also in the Alan Ladd-Sidney Poitier film All The Young Men, a war film set in Korea where he plays a bigoted southern redneck resenting Sidney Poitier put in charge of the squad.

The Black Whip is an OK western, but for Paul Richards a career role.

It shoots, therefore I am.

[rmax304823 · 1/10 · 13 October 2003]

SPOILERS

A cheaply made, black and white Western, this movie reeks of lassitude. It has a decent cast -- Hugh Marlowe, Colleen Gray (still looking great), Paul Richards, Angie Dickenson, Strother Martin -- and they have a chance to stretch their acting chops but don't do it, defeated by an unhinged script and Warren's direction. If a director doesn't really want to shoot a good Western, this is a pretty good way not to do it.

The plot seems to be made of three separate incidents centered around the "blacklegs," that is a band of former Confederates who served with Quantrell and are now wanted by the law. One of them is in jail. But an unknown woman sets him free, so the sheriff does what any moral-minded sheriff would do. He rounds up the four "dance hall girls" or whatever the hookers are called in this movie and boots them out of town. They find themselves stranded in another small town with no law-enforcement official but in which Marlowe is prima inter pares. He's a disillusioned idealist and finds no cause worth fighting for. (It's the Bogart part.) He must be prompted by exceptional circumstances to use violence again. Ho hum. The terminal shootout is built around a visit by the new governor. The blacklegs take over Marlowe's town and propose to take the governor hostage and then kill him after they get the pardons they want and the separation package.

Charles Marquis Warren must have been asleep while the cameras were rolling. He can't even handle the extras. A few examples. Marlowe is having a furious fist fight with one of the heavies. He throws himself on top of the guy, but he does so the way you and I might climb into a bed, slowly, one knee at a time. This isn't nitpicking; it's a major miscalculation because we can no longer suspend our disbelief. This is not a scene of two people fighting. Its a scene in which two wealthy actors have been told to make believe they're having a fight.

In another scene Strother Martin has just entered a room and sees Gray trying to brain Marlowe with a candlestick. Martin has been kept in the shot while the other two struggle only a few feet away. And he does not react to the violence. He doesn't jump out of the way or say anything. Arms at his sides, he stands still and watches the struggle, looking like an envelope without any address written on it. The director's job is to see to it that things like this don't happen on screen.

Marlowe's callow younger brother is about to draw on a bad guy. The countdown from three begins. The brother strikes a pose that is frankly absurd. His feet are stretched as wide apart as human tendons will permit. His arms are spread like the wings of an alarmed bird whose flight distance has just been breached. If the scene elicits any response from the viewer, it's laughter, not a clenched jaw.

Wardrobe should be spanked. Here is how this movie defines a "dirty shirt." You take the shirt. You cut a few holes in it with a pair of scissors. Then you spray a bit of dark paint around the neatly cut holes. Now it's a "dirty shirt." The holes aren't even at the elbows, where some wear might be expected, but on the chest and back. Every man wearing a "dirty shirt" looks as if he'd been plugged several times at close range.

The sets are rudimentary, set in the California hills. The two or three locations are virtually uninhabited except by the blacklegs, the hookers, and a few people who hang in the saloon.

The pretty gals just arrived on the stage.

[michaelRokeefe · 3/10 · 6 August 2006]

Typical Saturday afternoon at the movies western. Mediocre at best in spite of being directed by Charles Marquis Warren. This B movie is obvious low budget. Four fancy saloon gals(Colleen Gray, Angie Dickinson, Adele Mara and Dorothy Schuyler) are put on a stage and ran out of town. Destination, who knows where, is not reached due the stage breaking down at a way station. As the wheel of the stage is being repaired, a gang of outlaws arrive and demand the women; they want the bad men's money, but nothing else. The girls stand about looking nice, while the villains want to raise a ruckus...and a whip is taken to a gun fight. Oh, well.

The rest of the cast features: Hugh Marlowe, Richard Gilden, Paul Richards, Sheb Wooley and Strother Martin. It seems a long 77 minutes.

It is so bad it is enjoyable

[btm1 · 1/10 · 28 February 2009]

I tuned to this movie by mistake, thinking it was something else. (I have Verizon FiOS and their movie descriptions are really bare bones.) But it was so bad that I was curious to see how bad it could be. As an earlier commenter noted, the role of the younger brother was played as an over the top caricature. I don't think that the actor intended that, but I guess the Director didn't care.

The gimmick of this "B" western is that the leader of the criminal gang uses a bull whip instead of a gun.

The script is also ridiculous. At one point the "bad guy" (the leader, well acted by Strother Martins, of one of the criminal splinter gangs that evolved from the Civil War's infamous Quantrill Raiders) tells the "good guys" that he will send 4 of his men out to negotiate, and they will be unarmed. The leader of the "good guys," the Governor takes this known depraved killer's word that they will be unarmed. But there is no reason for them to go outside to negotiate because they have no problem communicating from inside the house they occupy, and there is no reason why so many are needed for the negotiation.

MST3K worthy

[dontwanna-01765 · 2/10 · 8 November 2017]

Opening theme is the ONLY reason I retain knowledge of this film. By award winner Raoul Kraushaar, it's a good theme wasted. Opening & first scene after credits offers promise. Rest is like a kid tying a shoe for the first time. Marlowe's no Paul Newman, but even his acting was sub par-his stumbling b4 his flashback is laughable. Paul Richards' 'Man w the Whip' was a villain deserving of a better plot. If I got a recording of the theme, I'd never search 4 this movie again.