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IMDbPro

Good Day for a Hanging

  • 19591959
  • PassedPassed
  • 1h 25m
IMDb RATING
6.3/10
850
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
24,980
27,462
Robert Vaughn, Joan Blackman, and Fred MacMurray in Good Day for a Hanging (1959)
Official Trailer
Play trailer2:01
1 Video
8 Photos
Western
After claiming his daughter's childhood-sweetheart killed the marshal, one man finds himself in conflict with his daughter, his fiancée and many of the townsfolk.After claiming his daughter's childhood-sweetheart killed the marshal, one man finds himself in conflict with his daughter, his fiancée and many of the townsfolk.After claiming his daughter's childhood-sweetheart killed the marshal, one man finds himself in conflict with his daughter, his fiancée and many of the townsfolk.
IMDb RATING
6.3/10
850
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
24,980
27,462
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Director
      • Nathan Juran
    • Writers
      • Daniel B. Ullman(screenplay)
      • Maurice Zimm(screenplay)
      • John Reese(short story)
    • Stars
      • Fred MacMurray
      • Margaret Hayes
      • Robert Vaughn
    Top credits
    • Director
      • Nathan Juran
    • Writers
      • Daniel B. Ullman(screenplay)
      • Maurice Zimm(screenplay)
      • John Reese(short story)
    • Stars
      • Fred MacMurray
      • Margaret Hayes
      • Robert Vaughn
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 27User reviews
    • 9Critic reviews

    Videos1

    Good Day for a Hanging
    Trailer 2:01
    Good Day for a Hanging

    Photos8

    Fred MacMurray in Good Day for a Hanging (1959)
    Fred MacMurray in Good Day for a Hanging (1959)
    Joan Blackman and Denver Pyle in Good Day for a Hanging (1959)
    Joan Blackman in Good Day for a Hanging (1959)
    Robert Vaughn and Joan Blackman in Good Day for a Hanging (1959)
    Joseph Hamilton and Fred MacMurray in Good Day for a Hanging (1959)
    Robert Vaughn in Good Day for a Hanging (1959)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Fred MacMurray
    Fred MacMurray
    • Marshal Ben Cutler
    Margaret Hayes
    Margaret Hayes
    • Ruth Granger
    • (as Maggie Hayes)
    Robert Vaughn
    Robert Vaughn
    • Eddie Campbell
    Joan Blackman
    Joan Blackman
    • Laurie Cutler
    James Drury
    James Drury
    • Paul Ridgely
    Wendell Holmes
    Wendell Holmes
    • Tallant Joslin
    Edmon Ryan
    Edmon Ryan
    • William P. Selby, Attorney
    Stacy Harris
    Stacy Harris
    • Coley
    Kathryn Card
    Kathryn Card
    • Molly Cain
    Emile Meyer
    Emile Meyer
    • Marshal Hiram Cain
    Bing Russell
    Bing Russell
    • George Fletcher
    Russell Thorson
    Russell Thorson
    • Harry Landers
    Denver Pyle
    Denver Pyle
    • Deputy Ed Moore
    Phil Chambers
    Phil Chambers
    • Deputy William Avery
    Howard McNear
    Howard McNear
    • Olson
    Rusty Swope
    • Midge Granger
    Gregg Barton
    Gregg Barton
    • Frank
    • (uncredited)
    John Barton
    • Townsman
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Nathan Juran
    • Writers
      • Daniel B. Ullman(screenplay)
      • Maurice Zimm(screenplay)
      • John Reese(short story)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The theme song for 3.10 To Yuma [1957] is played frequently here especially in scenes involving Vaughan and Blackman
    • Goofs
      When Ben is talking to Molly Cain on the widow's front porch, her mailbox can be seen on the fence in front of her house. The movie is set in 1870, but the postal service didn't start delivering to rural mailboxes until 1903, and that style of mailbox wasn't invented until 1915.
    • Quotes

      Ruth Granger: Eddie is just a boy. Tom was killed by a hardened criminal.

      Ben Cutler: Do you think this kid is any less hardened? Since when is a young rattlesnake any less poisonous than an old one?

    User reviews27

    Review
    Top review
    Curiously routine
    Seeing this today -- an inexpensive 1958 undistinguished Western with talent in the declining years of their careers -- is a curious experience. The studios ground out hundreds of these in the 1940s and 1950s until inundated by the flood of TV westerns that were even cheaper. Towards the end of their life trajectory there was some attempt to distinguish them from TV fare by calling them "adult Westerns," meaning that the plot was more than twenty-one years old.

    But it's instructive to watch something like this from a distance of almost half a century. A few points leap out at the viewer unbidden. One, for instance, is that this particular piece owes an awful lot to "High Noon," a highly successful inexpensively made Western with an aging star, released eight years earlier. The marshall begins his career with the support of the entire town, loses it, and winds up standing alone, even against the wishes of his family. The ticking off of Gary Cooper's sources of support -- relentlessly, inexorably, one by one -- in "High Noon" was sometimes a bit hard to swallow, but the arguments against supporting Marshall Kane (there's a "Marshall Kane" in this one too, the writers not having stretched too much) at least involved sometimes rather complex motives. They wanted Cooper out of town for various reasons, but all of them more or less plausible. Here, a couple of drinks from the defense counsel and all the aldermen and town councilmen ("the town's most respected citizens") are against hanging the kid. Nobody seems to think very hard. Oh -- and the defense counsel is a sight to behold, personally insulting MacMurray and having a fist fight with him, wearing a perpetual sneer, and using oily and insinuating locutions. (No penalties for overacting.)

    The second things that leaps out at the viewer is the script. We've grown so accustomed to hearing period speech in recent Westerns that it comes as a shock to find not even a perfunctory nod to periodicity in this movie. Every character speaks as if it were 1958 instead of 1888. And as if they were all middle-class screenwriters living in Hollywood. The grammar is eighth-grade perfect and there is not a regionalism in sight. You get the impression that if someone had said anything like, "I don't know nuthin' about that -- I laid down the snaffles under the ramada by the remuda," everyone around him would be frozen into tonic immobility.

    The acting is, for the most part, okay. MacMurray is a competent professional, Robert Vaughan does an excellent psychopath while breaking into tears during the trail in order to gain the jury's sympathy. Emil Meyers is always good, although his part here is too small. His widow is overplayed by the actress. And, as I say, the defense counsel belongs in a Cecil B. DeMille movie.

    I'm glad I watched it. It's a genuine period piece. They no longer turn out Westerns like this. They turn out cheaply made slasher flicks in their stead. I think I prefer Westerns like this.
    helpful•22
    6
    • rmax304823
    • Dec 14, 2003

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • January 1959 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Der Henker wartet schon
    • Filming locations
      • USA
    • Production company
      • Morningside Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 25 minutes
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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    Robert Vaughn, Joan Blackman, and Fred MacMurray in Good Day for a Hanging (1959)
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