Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

marcslope A western, a revenge epic in the Sergio Leone mode, a 3D novelty, a soap opera, and a reunion for Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, who were so great together in "Double Indemnity" and "Remember the Night." By those standards it's a letdown, and screenwriter Niven Busch, who did well by Babs in "The Furies," seems unable to concentrate on any one plot strand for very long. Fred's a cattle rustler, or moonlighter, who's awaiting trial but facing a lynching, when, for contrived plot reasons, the mob seizes the wrong man and lynches him. Fred breaks out and swears revenge. Then it's a romance, as he heads back to his former sweetheart, who, unpersuasively, is being courted by Fred's younger brother, the always-watchable William Ching. He feels young for Babs, though, and this is a little late in her career for her to be playing an ingenue. Then, with the two brothers trading Babs back and forth, old crony Ward Bond shows up, and Ching unconvincingly leaves his steady bank teller job to assist the other two in robbing the bank he works for. The love story doesn't work, the 3D is largely unemployed except for one waterfall sequence that must have looked good, and the happy ending is rushed and ridiculous. Still, there are some good sequences--the hanging, a swell Fred-Ward fight, the tense bank robbery. Roy Rowland directs, as he always did, anonymously.

utgard14 Wes Anderson (Fred MacMurray) plays a "moonlighter," which is a person who rustles cattle by moonlight, that is arrested and awaiting trial when a lynch mob after his head storms the jail. The mob doesn't know which prisoner is the moonlighter, so they wind up hanging the wrong man while Wes escapes. He returns later to seek revenge on the members of the lynch mob. He's injured in the process which leads to his reuniting with his ex-girlfriend (Barbara Stanwyck), who is now engaged to Wes' younger brother.Disappointing 3D western that features the two leads from Double Indemnity but doesn't deserve to even be discussed in the same breath as that classic. It starts out well enough with an exciting opening twenty minutes or so but it all goes downhill after that and becomes a predictable and boring melodrama. The stars are better than this material. No clue why it was in 3D as there's nothing particularly impressive about any of the visuals.

moonspinner55 Cattle rustler outwits a lynch mob and takes refuge with his Ma and kid brother; he reacquaints himself with a former sweetheart--but after he's involved in a bank robbery, the girl gets herself deputized and vows to bring him in "dead or alive". Mediocre western rides a familiar trail, the only hook for an audience (today, and most likely in 1953 as well) being the casting of the leads. Fred MacMurray is a terrific failed bad guy, his look of incredulousness suiting his hulking frame, while Barbara Stanwyck acquits herself well in cowgirl duds and handles both horse and rifle exceptionally well. Not a barn-burner by any means, and saddled with a stodgy direction from Roy Rowland, but an interesting b-item for admirers of the stars. ** from ****

bkoganbing One wonders why Warner Brothers chose to make The Moonlighter in 3-D and yet not bother with color. That almost to me seems self defeating if you're trying to lure people out of their homes and away from their television screens. And why do this on a minor western? Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck who made the classic Double Indemnity for Paramount almost a decade earlier set off no sparks in The Moonlighter. MacMurray is in the title role and when one is a Moonlighter one is a cattle rustler who plies his trade during the evening hours. Either way it can get you lynched as a mob from the town where MacMurray is in jail does, but to the wrong guy thinking it's him.Which allows him to take some revenge on those that wanted to do him in, like Clint Eastwood in Hang 'Em High. Still a wanted man Fred goes back to the old home town where he wants to take up bank robbery and visit his sweetheart Barbara Stanwyck. But she's now seeing his brother William Ching.Nevertheless Fred does attempt a robbery with old outlaw colleague Ward Bond. After that the plot gets so ridiculous that I almost dare you to see it.In color it would have been better, but there is a nice sequence at a waterfall involving the stars that must have been great in 3-D. But for my money it's not enough to make up for a really ridiculous plot in a film that neither star thought highly of.