Warlock (1959)

A famous gunman becomes the marshal of Warlock to end a gang's rampages, but is met with some opposition by a former gang member turned deputy sheriff who wants to follow only legal methods.

Director:

Edward Dmytryk

Writers:

Robert Alan Aurthur (screenplay), Oakley Hall (novel)

Stars:

Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Richard Widmark	...	Johnny Gannon
Henry Fonda	...	Clay Blaisedell
Anthony Quinn	...	Tom Morgan
Dorothy Malone	...	Lily Dollar
Dolores Michaels	...	Jessie Marlow
Wallace Ford	...	Judge Holloway
Tom Drake	...	Abe McQuown
Richard Arlen	...	Bacon
DeForest Kelley	...	Curley Burne (as De Forest Kelley)
Regis Toomey	...	Skinner
Vaughn Taylor	...	Henry Richardson
Don Beddoe	...	Dr. Wagner
Whit Bissell	...	Petrix
Bartlett Robinson	...	Buck Slavin

Storyline

In the small frontier mining town of Warlock, rancher Abe McQuown's gang of cowboy cutthroats terrorize the peaceful community, humiliating the town's legitimate deputy Sheriff and running him out of town. Helpless and in need of protection, the townsfolk hire the renowned town tamer Clay Blaisdell, as unofficial Marshal, to bring law and order to the town. Clay arrives with his good friend and backup Tom Morgan. The two men stand up to the ranch gang and quiet the town. Johnny Gannon, a former member of the ranch gang is bothered by the gang's actions, reforms and takes on the deputy Sherrif job while his brother remains part of the gang. The addition of the official lawman to the mix further complicate matters, leading to an inevitable clash of the cowboys, the townsfolk, the gunslingers and the law.

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Plot Keywords:

confrontation | stabbed in the hand | sheriff's badge | double gun holster | romantic rivalry | 

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Taglines:

Wherever you've been... Whatever you've seen... You've never run into anything like Warlock.

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Genres:

Western

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

April 1959 (USA)

Also Known As:

Shoot Out at Warlock

Filming Locations:

20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$2,400,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$3,706,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox

Technical Specs

Runtime:

122 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System) 4-Track Stereo

Color:

Color (Color by Deluxe)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Film debut of Gary Lockwood.

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Goofs

In the last "showdown" between Gannon and Blaisedell, there has been a large rain the night before and it soaks the streets. When they meet on the street, and Blaisedell throws his guns into the street, it is so dusty the guns just sink into the sand. Later in that scene, when Blaisedell rides his horse out of town, you can see the streets with wet mud instead of dry dust.

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Quotes

Johnny Gannon: He just saved your life, Billy! I wonder why...

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Connections

Referenced in Pastewka: Das Praktikum (2006)

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Soundtracks

Cindy
(traditional American folk song)
Performed by DeForest Kelley

User Reviews

A pretty exciting law and order Star Western...

The Colt revolver was a tool and the more you study the men who used it at a high professional level the more it becomes obvious that they were also tools, sometimes unwittingly, sometimes (according to Western films) quite the opposite... Necessary tools, necessary men in a very compressed package of American history... They have their brief moment on the stage and then it's time to take their leave, preferably with their boots on, knowing, or not knowing that they've done the job that history actually required, but that history, in fact, won't thank them for it...

Fonda—a quiet dominant personality in Westerns—puts this over perfectly in Edward Dmytryk's 'Warlock,' unpretentious Western… Here Fonda is a professional hired gun brought in specially, and most temporarily, one always feels, to calm down a town plagued by cowboys, some of them with outlaw affiliations...

Every word he says ('I'm a simple man, handy with Colts'), every calculated ploy, shows that he's marvelously clear-eyed about his situation—that today he's wanted, that tomorrow he won't be—because he's an old professional and it's all happened before...

Spruce as spry as ever, Fonda is Clay Blaidsdell, a legendary gunfighter, the ideal professional gunman with great expectations... He is hired, temporarily, by the citizens of Warlock to clean up their town from the outlaws... The movie focuses on his rise when he succeeds in removing the bad guys in a spectacular confrontation, and his fall when he is forced to face his best friend in a showdown...

Fonda brings with him his hero-worshiping right hand and conscience, the ex-killer Tom Morgan (Quinn), who challenges his one-man rule, one vindictive old girlfriend and one loving new flame... When the pair defeats the San Pedro gang, one of its members, Johnny Gannon (Widmark), stays behind and volunteers to become Blaisdell's deputy...

As an uneasy peace settles onto Warlock, the relationship between Blaisdell and Morgan deteriorates when the marshal finds romance with a local girl, Jessie Marlow (Dolores Michaels). Gannon, meanwhile, becomes involved with Lily Dollar (Dorothy Malone), who at one time had been Morgan's mistress and now hates both Blaisdell and him for killing a man she had hoped to marry...

Blond for the only time in his career, Quinn – curious and different as the complex, clubfooted gambler-gunman whose relationship with Clay, leans rather strongly toward homosexuality – made Dmytryk's multi-plotted film somewhat daring for its time... Its complicated story line, working at various levels, and its shadowy psychological innuendos, turned off critics and audiences alike, and from several corners came concern that Dmytryk had carried the 'new convention' Western too far too fast... Nevertheless "Warlock" remains a typical law and order Star Western, well written, pretty exciting, and entirely in the classic mold...