The Burning Hills

Louis L'Amour novels make good reading and fine western cinema and The Burning Hills is no exception. Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood who were a screen team and studio public relations created off screen romance star in this film which has Tab Hunter on the run and Natalie Wood helping him.

Hunter's got plenty of reason to run, his brother was killed and he shoots Ray Teal who is the overlord of the local Ponderosa. The wounded Teal who really doesn't have title to a lot of the land he runs roughshod over and he sends his rotten son Skip Homeier and foreman Claude Akins with some of his riders after him. At no time are they a legally constituted posse and Homeier and Akins can't stand each other and have many issues between them.

Skip Homeier ever since he shot Gregory Peck in the back in The Gunfighter made a good career of playing some really nasty punk villains and he's certainly at his nastiest here. Eduard Franz has a strange and interesting part also as a mixed race tracker that Akins insists on having in the posse. He's a person of interesting and shifting loyalties.

Wood and Hunter were certainly an attractive pair and the teens and Tweens in the audience got some thrills as Hunter had to appear topless as Wood nursed him with his injuries. The Burning Hills has a lot of tension in it as the posse closes in and Hunter is a pretty resourceful man. Wood has a few tricks of her own to baffle the posse and not all of them involve sex.

The Burning Hills is a nicely constructed western that I'm sure Louis L'Amour took some pride in the screen version of his work.

I was waiting to see some hills burning. Didn't appen.

A very routine western ,with a plot the average viewer has already seen fifty times (the wealthy landlord who wants to get rid of all the little farmers around,and his nasty offspring),this is nevertheless an entertaining nervy work ,with a good chemistry between the two principals .Natalie Wood ,who was only 18 at the time ,displays strength and resilience against a bunch of villains who ceaselessly harass her.She's the only man in her family ,her uncle and her little brother are sissies ,but we're told her father was a brave man ,just like Daniel Jordan,the man she helps to fight the criminals who killed his brother.A rather violent western,with a lot of death,and a splendid cinematography.

Tab Hunter has here one of his rare lead characters role; he usually co starred with big names, and this movie is not a B picture either. Stuart Heisler was not Lesley Selander, Alfred Werker, Ray Nazzaro or Jack Arnold. This vengeance plot, scheme, is as old as the western genre, so don't expect any surprises here. You'll find here a very good time waster and a Nathalie Wood's performance which is worth the viewing. Nothing special concerning this western, that was rather in the Twentieth Century Fox manner, using supporting actors for Cinemascope - or the studio equivalent - frames. Good western.

Soon after his brother has been shot to death, handsome Tab Hunter (as Trace Jordan) arrives in the western town of "Esperanza". Along with Mr. Hunter, we quickly learn the man responsible for murdering brother is young cigar-stomping Skip Homeier (as Jack Sutton). As it turns out, Mr. Homeier and his gang have run the sheriff out of town; they also shoot anyone who tries to stake a claim in the area. Hunter is advised to leave town immediately, but refuses. With his muscular frame and quick draw, Hunter easily infiltrates the Sutton ranch, to demand justice.

Wounded in a shoot-out, Hunter barely escapes from the ranch. He collapses near the home of sexy sheepherder Natalie Wood (as Maria Colton). Taunted by the "Sutton Gang" due to her mixed heritage (English father, Mexican mother) and preference for dresses that accentuate her beautifully-shaped breasts, Ms. Wood hides Hunter from Homeier, and nurses him back to health. Hunter and Wood are mutually attracted to each other. Hunter hopes to report Homeier and his gang to the United States Cavalry at nearby Fort Stockwell. Will he get there?

Warner Bros. must have known putting popular but unproven Hunter in this high-budgeted CinemaScope western would be a gamble - but, it pays off. He always fit the genre like a glove, and it's too bad a long string of Hunter westerns wasn't forthcoming. Hunter's greatest asset, herein, isn't really his handsomeness; rather, it's that he adds a muscular athleticism to the usual western antics. As you'll plainly see, there was no need to fear Hunter would snap a girdle, or slip a toupee. Trying on a Spanish accent, Wood is tightly outfitted, and highly arousing.

Homeier turns in a wonderfully nasty supporting performance. Mixed-raced "Indian" tracker Eduard Franz (as Jacob Lantz), limping liquor-soaked Earl Holliman (as Mort Bayliss), and foreman Claude Akins (as Ben Hindeman) lead a strong supporting cast. With sexless romance and Spanish stereotypes, writer Louis L'Amour (book) and Irving Wallace (script) break no new ground, but you know how these western stories go. Director Stuart Heisler corrals the young stars well; he left feature films for dependable work on episodic western television.

******** The Burning Hills (8/23/56) Stuart Heisler ~ Tab Hunter, Natalie Wood, Skip Homeier, Earl Holliman