I can't believe how forgotten, underrated, and unheard of this movie is. I'm a big fan of Westerns, and this one is great. Great dialogue, great acting, Kirk Douglas is a bad mofo, and so is Anthony Quinn for that matter. Just thought someone had to give this movie some props.
shareYeah, brilliant Western with a cast at the top of their game. Just a bit different to others of it's genre from that period. Stellar performance from Douglas.
And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
I couldn't agree with your opinion more. A very underrated and
unappreciated western classic from this era. I'm a huge fan
of the late director John Sturges's films and I own both
"The Magnificent Seven" & "The Great Escape." And I'm also
a longtime fan of both Kirk Douglas and the late Anthony Quinn
as well. Both actors along with a young Earl Holliman and
Carolyn Jones turned in superb performances! A wonderful
movie that is on both my favorite classic movies and classic
westerns lists.
Lorenzo Sunny California
I'm James "Sonny" Crockett!
Terrific Western stands out among the Westerns of the 50's and early 60's. Not routine in any way, Anthony Quinn, Kirk Douglas, Carolyn Jones, Earl Holliman and Brad Dexter all give top flight performances. The characters and their relationships are atypical for a Western or most other genres. A great under appreciated film.
shareYes do not know why the first time I saw this was yesterday during a TCM "Carolyn Jones' mini film fest. Very well done....
Read My Lips!!!!
Very good movie. THe theme is a little like that movie, I can't think of the name and believe Gregory Peck was in and he spent the movie seeking revenge for the rape and death of his wife.
shareYou're thinking of THE BRAVADOS (1958), but in that one Peck was just an ordinary rancher out for vengeance -- against the wrong men, as it turns out. In GUN HILL Douglas is the marshal out to do his job, which happens to neatly overlap with vengeance. Actually it reminded me more of 3:10 TO YUMA (1957), with Van Heflin hired to hold onto outlaw Glenn Ford in a hotel room before catching the title train, while Ford's men try to spring him. In that one Heflin needs the money and does it just for the pay. A lot of people think 3:10 is a superior movie but I always found it a little disappointing, especially its cop-out ending. LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL is much better.
My only criticism is that it should have been set 20 years earlier. Although the year it takes place is never specified, they have telephones (in the sheriff's office in Gun Hill, and Douglas's deputy talks about "calling them up"), and there are other indications the film takes place outside the usual time frame of the "old west". (In a shot of Douglas walking down the street of Gun Hill soon after his arrival, he passes a wall with a presidential campaign poster on it, and it looks like one for the Republican ticket of Theodore Roosevelt and Charles Fairbanks -- which if I'm right would set it in 1904!) I think it would have been better to have enhanced the sense of remoteness (and lawlessness) by specifically having it take place around 1875-1880.
And by the way, the title of this thread certainly doesn't make it sound as if the contributors like the movie!
hob I saw this movie shortly after it was released in 1959 and I was ten years old and impressed by it. I read the book which was based on the screenplay and I don't have the book any more but memory makes me think the setting as given in the book was 1905. I don't have any link or proof but just from an old man's memory from back when he was ten.
shareWow! Thanks, wtl, it looks like your memory is right, and for my part I guess I'm still pretty good at recognizing former presidential (and VP) candidates! I was almost certain that was a TR-Fairbanks poster and your info makes me virtually 100% certain. But it makes me think even more that the story would have been better set during the "classic" old west, as I said, circa 1880. (I'm sure they could have faked a Garfield/Arthur poster!)
Thank you again for that interesting bit of information.
A splendid western, gripping from the get-go and never letting go until the final scene. All involved were on ace form, but despite everything the film remains grounded and never goes over the top -- that's one of the reason's why this revenge picture remains a stand-out in a genre filled with revenge flicks. Still, it's unfairly under-known and perhaps better for being such, garnering a solid reputation among those privvy to this little gem.
Just picked up the DVD, BTW. It's been on release for a while but just never got round to buying it. Good job by Paramount, but, as per usual, lacking in bonus features.
NOW TARZAN MAKE WAR!
what's the runtime of the movie and is the full uncut movie available on dvd anywhere?
shareVery very good western, but totally underrated and forgotten. I am a big fan of westerns and have seen all the 'classics' but I only discovered LTFGH on the message board for '3:10 to Yuma' because someone made the comparison. Otherwise I may never have discovered it.
Very original, well-scripted, gripping and with some fine acting thrown in. I liked the ending also as it wasn't traditionally 'satisfying'.
Great stuff.
Hobnob....why would the film be any better if it had been set in 1880 instead of 1905?? I do not understand why that matters. But do note that early in the film the Marshall is reliving for some boys, how he had a gunfight years before with a gang of outlaws. So, they are trying to show a bit, that the west is settling down...And, after all, there was still plenty of western violence in the early 1900s I believe. For example, Warren Earp was shot to death in, or outside of, an Arizona saloon in 1900.
shareHello moewadle: I just think it would have been better set 25-30 years earlier because in the 1870s and 1880s the West was more remote and lawless and a land baron like Quinn would have been much more likely to wield such unchecked power than he would have in the 20th century.
Of course, there was violence in the West in 1905 -- as there is in 2013 -- but I think a story like this works better in an era when authority was much more sporadic and often in the hands of "unofficial" (read: self-appointed) individuals than was the case by the 1900s.
The scene with Douglas at the beginning, telling the kids about his exploits of earlier years, actually makes my point. The action in this film would have been better set against the more lawless backdrop of an earlier era. Also, Douglas's being married to an Indian would have provoked more hatred in the 1870s and 80s than it would by 1905.
This isn't a big deal, the movie is terrific. But it's a small point I think would have made the movie better. Besides, when we hear the word "western", we think of the 1800s, not the 1900s.
Yes, the title of this thread is SH*T! Someone change it, please!
I can't agree that setting this film 20 years earlier would improve it--this is great as it is, and it's really a timeless story. Elements of this remind me of "Outland", the Sean Connery space thriller from 1981--a lot of people thought "Outland" was a sci-fi but gritty take on "High Noon".
Hollywood rehashes story lines and plots--that's what they do. For good or ill, doing that is the bread & butter for the Hollywood film industry. It is the rare film that is fairly original from top to bottom, inside & out. Audiences like what they like, and an understandable & familiar story can be told repeatedly if done well, changing time & place and all the details, with a twist or two thrown in for good measure. Compare "Jaws" and "Alien". The basic plots have many similarities, not the least of which was a voracious beast with sharp teeth that ate people like so many corndogs.
Last Train from Gun Hill is one of the great Westerns. It had an emotional depth and complexity of characters that required really good actors in the key roles--and they all delivered the goods in this one. I especially enjoyed Anthony Quinn's performance as head honcho of Gun Hill who lost everything that meant the most to him.
I had not seen this film until quite recently--don't know how I missed it.
I think setting this 20 years earlier would have been better because the vigilante lawlessness Quinn undertakes would have been far easier to get away with in the 1870s or 80s than in the 1900s, in addition to the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. But you're correct that the issues involved are timeless, even if the precise visualization of them might differ from era to era.
Your post made me realize there are also some plot points here similar to "Broken Lance" from 1954, with Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner and Richard Widmark, another very good and half-neglected western.
BTW, "Alien" was basically a rip-off of 1958's "It! The Terror From Beyond Space", which I found much more enjoyable, for all (maybe because of) its low-budget hokiness.
In todays slang, "this is the sh*t" means "this is the real thing", or "the good stuff". -Like getting good drugs or alchohol, slamming your fist down on the table, and exclaiming "Good sh*t!" -Can be confusing though.
I saw the beginning of this movie more than 40 years ago on television when I was in High School, and was somehow prevented from watching the rest of it. I remember the shocking/tragic scene of the rape/murder of the attractive indian woman and the pursuit leading up to it with the peculiarly melodramatic music that would switch back and forth between a sweetness and light theme for the indian, and a threatening theme for the drunken rapist cowboys. This film scoring technique is of the type usually derisively referred to as "mickey mousing", except that Dimitri Tiomkin is the master of western themes. I became an old man before I finally found out to what film this scene belonged (obviously a western), and was almost beginning to think I had dreamed it. It's the kind of thing you see in a bad dream.
Then a year ago, I saw the second half on television, captivated by the beauty of Carolyn Jones, thinking, wow, Carolyn certainly looks spiffy in whatever movie this is I've never seen before. Like most people who see Last Train from Gun Hill for the first time, I thought "What the hell is this movie, and why have I never seen it??" Checking the synopsis on IMDB, I saw that I had at last found the mysterious film I had been puzzled about so many years ago.
I think the title line of this thread is VERY confusing!
shareI just watched this movie, it is fantastic. Probably my favourite Western after Unforgiven. So much better than High Noon, Shane and all that overrated crap. New respect for Sturges, I also love The Great Escape.
shareGood, but not as great as "Warlock" with Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn. Richard Widmark is in it, too if that makes any difference to ya.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction must make sense.
This movie should be forgotten, it's stupid and makes the actors look stupid. None of them have enough sense to just stop the train from taking off.
sharei caught this for the first time on TV a number of years ago. i was always a fan of John Wayne Westerns, Magnificent Seven, Gunfight at OK Corral, etc, (not so much into the spaghetti ones) but i hadn't heard of this one. Not sure why i watched it, i don't think there was anything else on, but wow, this was a good movie. I'm glad i stuck on the channel
The tension throughout the movie, some great dialogue, and a really exciting standoff. I think Kirk Douglas' speech about how he's going to kill him slowly through court and the hanging... wow, that gave me chills the first time i heard it.
Really underrated, and probably my favorite Kirk Douglas movie now
Insert Signature Here
Don't know what's the big fuss here, with all the praising.
It's a routine western with a mundane predictable cliched script; A bunch of cardboard characters with some "deep" "cynical" dialogues thrown here and there to make it look sorta different.
There was s lot of plot holes, there was too much drama and cheap ass sentimentality throughout to make it anything outstanding.
3:10 to Yuma is way better.