Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

deickos Beginning and ending look cool but the story is not good. In fact it is bad - pretentious is the word I suppose. It is always a pity to see technically good films to be betrayed by their own story - it is sad. And that is always the primal responsibility of the director. Mr. Mankiewicz has a tendency for scale but this time it betrays him. It is difficult (if not disastrous) to put many things inside a western - the genre is frugal by definition. Few directors have managed more complex forms and Mankiewicz is definitely not among them.

Marco Trevisiol There is so much to like and appreciate about this film that while it's an enjoyable experience, it isn't the great film it should have been.Firstly, the script is largely excellent. It has a good plot and characters backed up by interesting dialogue. It has a top-notch cast delivering almost universally quality performances. As well, it has some interesting themes and issues to explore, especially in the central battle between Fonda's warden and Douglas' prisoner. The scene where Douglas confronts Fonda in the just built eating hall and exposes his self-serving interests and hypocrisy, is a great example of top-class screen writing.All the elements are there for a classic (or at least semi-classic) Western, but it doesn't quite reach that. Why? I think a big problem for this is Joseph L. Mankiewicz's direction. As other users have commented, the tone of the film is jerky and erratic and he has to take prime blame for that. But even in pure cinematic terms, it isn't well directed. Scenes that should have been highlights (such as the robbery that opens the film) lack punch because they're ineptly handled.I think another major problem is the cinematography. The glossy, bright and flashy look of TWACM seems more in tune for a jovial, knockabout, straightforward Western. For a film full of cynicism, complexity (as well as its share of humour) and some rather depressing elements, it's a distracting and misjudged look. The much more realistic style that was to become much more common in films as the 1970s progressed (e.g. 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller') would have been much more apt.Overall, an under-appreciated and underrated film worth seeking out. But also a bit of a missed opportunity.

FightingWesterner There Was A Crooked Man... is a bawdy and rowdy but morally bankrupt comedy that fits well with the anti-establishment sentiments at the time of it's release. It's a bit long but is helped considerably by an excellent cast and witty script.Kirk Douglas gives a good performance as a feisty outlaw in a territorial prison who squirreled away $500,000 in cash before being caught. Before long, he's using the unrecovered loot to gather around him a group of cons to help in his escape.The film is marred though, by Douglas' treacherous turn in the last act. He goes from lovable rogue to murderous backstabber at the drop of a hat, cold bloodily murdering friend and foe alike during his food fight, turned riot, turned escape attempt. Although his murderous streak is revealed at the beginning of the film, it's still quite unsettling to watch him kill people that the audience thought he bonded with.It's especially hard to watch Kirk double-cross the teenage boy played by Michael Blodgett, as he's really the only essentially good person in the entire film.Overall it's a bit overrated but still somewhat entertaining.

writers_reign Mank didn't write the screenplay for this, his penultimate movie but elected instead for a script from the team responsible for Bonnie and Clyde. The plot itself, a melange of Western meets Big House was also something of a departure though given his proved eclecticism no one was really surprised. Curate's Egg is as good a description as any for while it is definitely good in parts ultimately it fails to satisfy. Hume Cronyn, working for a third and final time with Mank may well have relished the return to at least half the genre where he made his name - at least as a film actor - as the brutal warder in Brute Force playing someone diametrically opposite in the form of a gay con. I didn't note that much chemistry between the two leads, Douglas and Fonda, unlike say, Douglas and Lancaster but the film does benefit from a rich assortment of support in the shape of John Randolph, Warren Oates, Arthur O'Connell, Burgess Meredith and Lee Grant. Douglas' exotically named Paris Pitman seems out of place in the Arizona desert but charms his way through. Interesting rather than memorable.