Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Lawbolisted Powerful

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Anthony Mantle "ragosaal's" review had it right with the outline of the movie. I too saw this movie at a theater in England when I was a youngster. And I too enjoyed the movie very much. I have from time to time checked to see if it has been made available to the public but it doesn't appear to have been. Some years back I had read that the ownership of this movie did not want to release it due to some political correctness issue. And it appeared they had no intent of re-releasing it ever. I have still continued to check just in case there had been a change of mind & in hope that at some new blood will think differently & release it as a DVD. The movie is a well acted movie by first class actors & the story is like High Noon with a solitary lawman fighting evil. It is a pity that such a well made movie is being withheld from an appreciative audience.

bkoganbing The Hellions according to some might well be considered Great Britain's first western although I think The Sheriff Of Fractured Jaw has a better claim. Ken Annakin better known for such Disney films with star Richard Todd like Robin Hood, The Sword And The Rose, and Rob Roy the Highland Rogue team together again for this film set in and shot in South Africa. It's the post Boer War era in the Union Of South Africa and the place still has a frontier feel to it. A family of real bottom feeders, the Billings clan headed by Lionel Jeffries is coming to town to settle a score with the local constable Richard Todd. They're a lot like the Clantons from My Darling Clementine and the Cleggs from Wagonmaster from those John Ford classics.In any event Todd who patrols the place unarmed gets his gun and wants some backup, but the town hesitates. Now he knows how Gary Cooper felt with those citizens of Hadleyville.In the end however Todd gets some help from a most unlikely source a man just sick and tired of kowtowing to these killers who collectively are known as The Hellions.Lionel Jeffries who usually plays comic village shows a savage side to him in The Hellions. Not something normally associated with him, but very good. Plaudits should also go to James Usys and Anne Aubrey as a husband and wife pair of storekeepers The Hellions intimidate.Note the harmonica parts of the music score are from the blacklisted Larry Adler who was probably the only American associated with The Hellions. They were a nice touch.As for the ending, think about the Frank Sinatra western Johnny Concho.

cmvoger I disagree with the commentator who opined that "The Hellions" resembles "Firecreek" in action and themes more closely than it resembles "High Noon". Points of similarity: 1. The Outlaw father is seeking revenge against the local lawman for a past injury. 2. It's a thriving frontier community, not a backwater full of "losers" like the town of Firecreek. 3. The departure-by-train that doesn't happen: Just as the Marshal'wife gets off the train to go back and help him fight, another character in "Hellions" makes a similar decision. But the townspeople in "Hellions" go only so far in leaving everything up to the Constible. When the chips are down, it's a very different ending.I first saw this movie about 1962, and again on TV in the late 80's. (Beware of the edited-for-TV print.--Ugh! But I still remember scraps of the lilting theme song: Here they come and may they soon be gone/ Matthew, Jubal, Mark and Luke and John/ ...Live by the gun and sure as the sunrise/ Die by the gun you must,/ Just as the Hellions one by one/ Died in the Trans Vaal dust! (Chorus: They died in the Trans Vaal dust!)

sanmigman The Hellions is a great film and Richard Todd is very convincing. I have seen this film only once and that was about 30 years ago on British television. I too, have searched for a video but have been unable to find any although Posters do appear on ebay from time to time. Most people say it is a High Noon and in some respects it is similar as a lone lawman, in this case a South African Constable has to face the bad guys alone out of his personal sense of duty. It is dissimilar to High Noon in that the action is more spread out as a sequence of events. It is most similar to Firecreek which was made 7 years later and stars James Stewart and Henry Fonda and I think this was a copy of the Hellions script adapted as a Western. In Firecreek James Stewart plays a honorary sheriff of a small town of losers which becomes a place for the bad guys led by Henry Fonda to hold up in. Fonda leads a gang of gunmen who take part in Range Wars. So if you can't watch the Hellions get a copy of Firecreek.Jeff Herbert