GamerTab That was an excellent one.

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Robert J. Maxwell Real-life ex felon Rory Calhoun (born Francis Timothy McCown) smirks his way through the role of gunfighter and professional gambler, Brett Wade. I don't know where screenwriters come up with these names for cowboys. I've done a scientific study of the subject and no cowboy was ever named Brett, Wade, Cole, Matt, or Dutch. As a matter of fact, the three most common names in the post-Civil War West were Montmorency, Governeur, and Bruce. Be that as it may, Calhoun, like some of the supporting cast, are well dressed in black frocks, ruffled white shirts, and those sparkly looking vests that gentlemen were supposed to wear.The opening scene is right out of "My Darling Clementine." Calhoun is the Doc Holliday figure, suffering from a hacking cough that's made only worse by the smoke, fetid air of Lordsberg, New Mexico. Lordsberg seems to have been a popular place to set Westerns, although it doesn't have the portent of a name like Contention ("The Gunfighter") or Big Whiskey ("Unforgiven"). But Lordsberg is the terminus of the stagecoach in John Ford's "Stagecoach." Calhoun wouldn't find the air in Lordsberg stifling today, if he could stay out the town's sole saloon. It's only an hour's drive from where I live and it's dry and dusty, speckled with the shabby gray boards of decrepit wooden buildings in the ghost towns scattered about the area.Oh, the movie. I was pretty well gemischt by the various allegiances of the townspeople. It was all explained by the narrator too quickly for me. Somebody doesn't like somebody else. Somebody else doesn't like somebody, and all for reasons never quite made clear, except that the Ferris family (quickly disposed of) are modeled on the Clanton boys from the shoot out at the O.K. corral.Calhoun decides to follow the doctor's advice and take the stage to Colorado Springs for his health. The other passengers are Piper Laurie and Alex Nicol. Piper Laurie's role could have been handled without a thought by any other second-tier actress of the time, Yvonne DeCarlo, Mari Blanchard, Mara Corday, Faith Domergue, zzzzz. It was a genuine surprise when, six years later, she did a magnificent job as an alcoholic cripple in "The Hustler." Here, she's merely pretty with a nose designed by a French curve and two plump lips. Alex Nicol, on the other hand, is vicious and hates Calhoun. His every utterance is an angry and contemptuous sneer. When he tries to be pleasant, it's obvious that he's TRYING to be pleasant. I don't mean Nicol himself, the actor, only the roles that he was always given. In real life he may have been a paragon of virtue and affability, his only passion being collecting Kachina Dolls or something. All three disencoach at Socorro for their own reasons. Laurie is fleeing a stern evangelical family. Nicol wants to kill Calhoun. And Calhoun wants to "get some things straight." Edgar Buchanan is on hand as the sheriff determined to keep Socorro peaceful. David Brian owns Socorro's Big Casino, a saloon and whorehouse. He's a businessman with an eye for pulchritude and he hires Piper Laurie as a "saloon girl".Not to worry. Calhoun saves her from her fate. I won't give away the ending but Calhoun is forced to shoot Nicol, Brien, and assorted henchmen before leaving town on the train with Piper Laurie, destination Colorado Springs and a better life for both of them.

zardoz-13 George Sherman's imaginative but brooding little western drama "Dawn at Socorro" synthesizes characters and events from every Wyatt Earp & Doc Holiday cinematic shoot-em up, deadline oaters like "High Noon," "Last Train to Gun Hill," and "The 3:10 to Yuma," and "Stagecoach." This modest Technicolored Universal-International release casts Rory Calhoun of "River of No Return" as notorious but well-tailored gambler Brett Wade. He suffers from an improperly healed lung wound, aspires to hang up his gun and turn over a new leaf in his life.The story opens with the framing device of a flashback that is later forgotten. A witness (Roy Roberts) to the infamous shoot-out in Keane's Stockyards remembers the events that culminated in the gunfight between the Farris clan--father Tom (Stanley Andrews of "Three Outlaws"), sons Earl (Lee Van Cleef of "Commandos") and Tom (Richard Garland of "Rage At Dawn")--and Marshal Harry McNair (James Millican of "Red Sundown"), Deputy Vince McNair (Scott Lee of "San Antone"), and Wade. The gunplay is snappy and well-orchestrated. Farris' youngest son Bud (Skip Homeier of "Tomorrow The World"), a drunken cowhand who gets rowdy when his girl stands him up raises Harry's hackles. He orders Bud to vacate the premises, but the drunken Farris decides to take a shot at the marshal. Wade intervenes and shoots the gun out of Bud's fist. Bud grabs another gun with his other hand and the marshal pumps him full of lead. The Farris clan learns about Bud's demise and challenge the McNairs and Wade to meet them in a showdown at the stockyards. Harry and Wade kick the patriarch and young Tom while a sniveling Earl flees the scene, vowing vengeance against Wade. Before Bud's death, Wade had locked horns with an unscrupulous, easily insulted gambler, Dick Braden, who tries to make a deal with Wade and McNair in order to open another saloon in Lordsburg. After Wade insults Braden about his casino in Socorro for serving watered-down liquor and rigged dice, Braden leaves the saloon and watches from afar as a man in a buckboard with a dressed-up woman Rannah Hayes (Piper Laurie) has some final words. The older bearded man disowns his daughter because of what he feels is her lack of moral conscience. Anyway, Lordsburg throws a farewell party for Wade and he climbs aboard the stage to Socorro for the train to Colorado Springs where he plans to recover his health. Gun-slinging Jimmy Rapp, who was too drunk to join the Farris clan during the gunfight, boards the stage, too, with blood in his eye. Hayes and Wade indulge in verbal sparring match before she saves his life from low-down Earl who tries to ambush the gambler. The crowning irony of this gunfight is that Wade kills Earl with Jimmy's six-shooter. Originally, Earl's father had hired Jimmy to act as Earl's bodyguard. When they reach Socorro, Rannah becomes a saloon girl despite Wade's protestations, and Sheriff Cauthen (Edgar Buchanan) keeps an eye on both Rapp and Wade. Initially, Cauthen escorted Wade to the train, but Wade got back off because of his attraction to Rannah. From the time that Wade enters his casino, Braden smolders with rage.Sherman and scenarist George Zukerman delineate the hero, the heroine, and the villains during the first third of this nifty western that ends with a fast-paced gunfight in the stockyards of Lordsburg, New Mexico. The neat thing about the stockyards shoot-out is that Sherman has the premises plowed up and watered down to suggest the manure-strewn nature of an authentic stockyard; this was long before Hollywood westerns could show horse apples. The scene where Wade plays a classic musical excerpt on the piano and everybody becomes quiet is memorable. The second third of the action takes place in the stagecoach and at one of the stops on the way to Socorro. The last third happens in Socorro leading up to Wade's departure on the morning train. Carl Guthrie's subdued looking photography gives the interior scenes in the Lordsburg saloon a conspiratorial Rembrandt quality with its warm colors and dark spaces. George Zuckerman's screenplay contains many quotable lines of dialogue.The entire cast is first-rate, with Calhoun delivering a solemn, contemplative performance as the South Carolina-bred, former Confederate officer turned melancholy gambler/gunman. If course, drawing comparisons between Brett Wade and Doc Holiday is inevitable. Meanwhile, Alex Nichol of "The Man From Laramie" gives Wade a hard time as an alcoholic, conscience stricken gunslinger named Jimmy Rapp, loosely based on real-life desperado Johnny Ringo. David Brian of "The Springfield Rifle" wants to see Wade dead, too. As Dick Braden, he operates the biggest casino in Socorro and lets Jimmy Rapp gulp his fill of booze. Edgar Buchanan is a nervy town marshal who wants to get Wade off onto the train to Colorado Springs before he shoots up Socorro. Finally, Piper Laurie of "Carrie" plays a daughter who's Puritan, suspicious-minded father has disowned and branded a 'Jezebel." Braden has hired her to work in his casino and distract his patrons with her feminine wiles so they will drink more and lose more at the gambling tables. The lives of these characters intertwine throughout this taunt 80 minute epic that doesn't look like the average 1950s' horse opera.

alexandre michel liberman (tmwest) Inspired by the OK Corral, and specially Doc Holliday this is an entertaining, colorful western. Rory Calhoun's character coughs a lot, because of a bullet that cannot be removed near his lung, which because of his lifestyle becomes inflamed. He has to move to Colorado Springs to get better but before that he becomes involved in a gunfight in a corral. Piper Laurie is the daughter of a religious man who throws her out of the house and calls her Jezebel. She gets a job offer at the Casino in Socorro by David Brian, the owner. After the gunfight Calhoun takes the stagecoach to Socorro where he meets Piper and falls in love with her. Lee Van Cleef and Alex Nicol, the ones who remained from the Ferris(Clanton) family after the gunfight will try to kill Calhoun. There is a good poker game between Calhoon and Brian. The final scenes were probably inspired by "High Noon".

bruce lander Any student of real western history will recognise the characters and part of the plot as being related to the Doc Holliday / Wyatt Earp /Clanton feud in Tombstone. Rory Calhoun is pretty obviously Doc while James Millican is Wyatt. The shootout in the stockyards is based on the OK corral and the screenwriters offer an interesting story on what happened next. Alex Nicol as Jimmy Rapp (John Ringo) is nicely portrayed and the movie moves along with a good pace of action, motivation and characterisation. Certainly a classic, considering the studio system in operation at the time it was made.A lot of effort and thought obviously went into its production. Well worth seeing.