Konterr Brilliant and touching

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

JohnHowardReid Randolph Scott (Jim Kipp/James Collins), Dolores Dorn (Julie Spencer), Marie Windsor (Alice), Howard Petrie (Sheriff Brand), Hanny Antrim (Dr Spencer), Robert Keys (George Williams), Ernest Borgnine (hotel desk clerk), Dubb Taylor (Postmaster Danvers), Tyler MacDuff (Vance), Archie Twitchell (Harison), Paul Picerni (Jud), Phil Chambers (Ed), Mary Lou Holloway (Mrs Ed), Billy Vincent (fat tough in border store), Fess Parker (potential rowdy), Kathryn Marlowe, Shirley Whitney (saloon girls), Dorothy Seese (girl), Wanda Barbour, Gail Robinson (townswomen), Guy Teague (O'Hanlon), Vincent Perry (Parson Ellsworth), Hope Miller (Maria Domingues), Fess Parker (wild cowboy), Charles Delaney (sheriff), Budd Buster, Leo Curley.Director: ANDRE DE TOTH. Screenplay: Winston Millier. Story: Winston Miller, Finlay McDermid. Photographed in Natural Vision 3-Dimension and WarnerColor by Edwin DuPar. Film editor: Clarence Kolster. Music composed and directed by David Buttolph, orchestrated by Maurice de Packh. Art director: Stanley Fleischer. Set decorator: William Wallace. Make-up: Gordon Bau. Wardrobe: Moss Mabry. Assistant director: Frank Mattison. Natural Vision 3-D supervisor: M.L. Gunzberg. Natural Vision consultant: Howard Schwartz. Visual consultant: Dr Julian Gunzberg. Sound recording: Francis J. Scheid. Producer: Sam Bischoff. Executive producer: Randolph Scott. A Transcona Enterprises Production.Copyright 1955 by Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 25 September 1954. U.K. release: December 1954. Australian release: 29 September 1955 (sic). 7,083 feet. 78 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Hired by Pinkertons a whole year after the robbery, a bounty hunter manages to trail three train bandits to Win Forks. Unfortunately, he has few clues as to their identities. COMMENT: The chase western in which the hero was required to track down a gang of outlaws, undoubtedly became the most popular (as well as the most used) of the genre's formulae. An interesting variant (as here) has the hero ignorant of the physical appearances of those he is pursuing. Although there are certainly a large number of films in this vein, "The Bounty Hunter" is definitely one of the most entertaining and suspenseful. Despite the welcome intrusion of 3-D effects (most of which are quite dramatically integrated into the staging, though the delightful shock of the villain's hat being shot off into the camera is perhaps overplayed for its novelty appeal), "The Bounty Hunter" can be viewed as a classy follow-up to the highly successful collaboration of star Scott and director De Toth on "Riding Shotgun". Miller's screenplay presents much the same critical examination of small-town folk and their various self-interests. Perhaps the multiple characterizations are not quite as incisively written, and perhaps they are not quite as vigorously played, but these trifling shortcomings are more than compensated by both De Toth's masterfully fluid direction with its long takes in dazzling tracking shots, and Miller's strong plot that successfully springs a number of tingling but still perfectly logical surprises. Needless to say, the action spots are most excitingly staged (and there's more than enough of them to satisfy the fans). Scott even seems to perform a particularly hazardous stunt himself. On another essential script ingredient, the screenwriter has penned some telling dialogue. And it's all most ingratiatingly acted. Scott paces through with his usual charismatic assurance and charming savoir faire, attractive Dolores Dorn delivers a most believable heroine, while our favorite "B" villainess Marie Windsor colorfully winds a crooked finger at our impervious hero. Howard Petrie makes a sterling sheriff. It's also good to find Ernest Borgnine as the boorish desk clerk and Dub Taylor as a somewhat surly committeeman. Fess Parker can be spotted in a small bit right at the film's end.Lavishly produced on actual locations as well as the studio's thriving back-lot, "The Bounty Hunter" also boasts excellent color photography and a rousing music score.I couldn't spot the villains. No way! But even if you can (which would make you a darn sight more clever than me), you'll find this movie still charged with more than a triple dose of palm-sweating suspense.

Claudio Carvalho The feared bounty hunter Jim Kipp (Randolph Scott) is hired by the Pinkerton Detective Agency to track down and find three wanted killers that robbed a train one year ago and recover the stolen money. The only clue he received is that one outlaw was shot in the leg. Jim Kipp comes to Twin Forks and seeks out the local Dr. R.L. Spencer (Harry Antrim) to ask whether he recalls attending a man with wounded leg one year ago. The doctor apparently does not recall but his daughter Julie Spencer (Dolores Dorn) confirms Kipp's suspicion. Kipp decides to stay at the hotel to investigate the town and most of inhabitants are affected by his presence. Will he succeed to find the trio?"The Bounty Hunter" is an average and entertaining western. Randolph Scott shines in the role of a tough, but fair bounty hunter, feared by outlaws and sheriffs. The identities of the killers are disclosed in the end and well resolved. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Feras Humanas" ("Human Beasts")

dougdoepke Plot heavy western that should please Scott fans, even if the film doesn't. In fact, the lantern jaw actor carries the 80-minutes, at the same time supporting players drift in and out rather aimlessly. Bounty hunter Kipp (Scott) is on the trail of three baddies who've blended into Twin Forks, so that their identities are now hidden. As a result, Kipp has to figure out who the guilty ones are. Trouble is the townspeople don't take kindly to being under suspicion, so he's got his work cut out for him.A plot like this relies greatly on script, which I found pretty loosely structured. Except for Kipp, none of the other many characters are sharply etched. Thus the mystery element never really gels, and with that goes much of the suspense until the last ten minutes. As you might expect this is not a scenic western, with most of the action taking place in a studio town. What the film does have going for it--in addition to Scott-- is the great Marie Windsor as, surprise, surprise, a dancehall girl. I just wish they had given her more to do. Some verbal face-offs between her and Scott would be explosive. Looks to me also like director deToth couldn't really engage with the script, despite his proved record with outstanding westerns—Ramrod (1947), Day of the Outlaw (1959).Overall, the oater shows off Scott's powerful presence, but, I'm sorry to say, not much else.

zardoz-13 Hollywood filmmakers have consistently showed nothing but contempt for the eponymous character in the Randolph Scott western "The Bounty Hunter," a solid, somewhat predictable, but hard-edged Warner Brothers' sagebrush shoot'em up directed by the stalwart Andre de Toth who helmed several Scott outings and received an Oscar nomination for the script that he co-authored with William Bowers for "The Gunfighter." Bounty hunters were reviled as morally depraved bushwhackers by Hollywood until the late 1950s when Charles Bronson appeared in the low-budget western "Showdown at Boot Hill" and Steve McQueen embarked on a three year television run with "Wanted Dead or Alive." Nevertheless, bounty hunters received chilly receptions wherever they rode, and these films proved to be the exception to the rule that bounty hunters could serve as heroic protagonists. In "Showdown at Boot Hill," Bronson spent the entire time trying to collect the reward money that was rightfully owed him because he had gunned down a beloved member of the community, while McQueen had to prove himself a likable fellow despite being a man hunter in "Wanted Dead or Alive." "The Bounty Hunter" may not be a pivotal epic in the evolution of the bounty hunter, but it reflects Hollywood's clear lack of sympathy for this objectionable character and how he fitted in with society. What makes this 1954 western so interesting aside from "My Darling Clementine" scenarist Winston Miller's formulaic narrative is how the Randolph Scott character conducts himself and the conversion that occurs at fade-out that allows society to assimilate him by fade out."The Bounty Hunter" opens with this foreword. "During the early days when civilization was pushing its frontiers farther and farther west, there roamed a special breed of men . . . neither outlaws nor officers of the law, yet more feared than either. For the reward money . . . they tracked down criminals wanted 'Dead or Alive, and made themselves judge and executioner in some lonely court of no appeal. They were called "Bounty Hunters." Thirteen years later, Italian director Sergio Leone provided a somewhat different foreword to his spaghetti western "For A Few Dollars More." You see the difference that the intervening years had made: "Where Life has no value, death sometimes has its price. This is why the bounty hunters appeared." Interestingly, whereas "For A Few Dollars More" opens with the bounty hunter bushwhacking an outlaw, "The Bounty Hunter" opens with an outlaw trying to bushwhack the protagonist. The bounty hunter that Randolph Hunter plays in "The Bounty Hunter" is every bit as tough and ruthless as the bounty killer that Clint Eastwood created in "For A Few Dollars More." One character observes cynically about Jim Kipp's tenacity, "Well, you know what they say about you, you'd turn in your grandmother on her birthday if there was a reward on her." The mentality of the 1950s prohibited Scott from wearing a beard like Eastwood and he doesn't draw first in a showdown. In fact, despite the hostility expressed toward bounty hunters, the filmmakers go out of their way to whitewash the Scott character as much as possible. He doesn't shoot first and ask questions later and he tries to bring his prey in alive. Moreover, he tosses back the small fry. A young rancher tries to bushwhack him, but Kipp disarms him and refuses to ship the kid back to prison. Later, Kipp explains his origins as a bounty hunter. He watched helplessly as his storekeeper father was gunned down by outlaws because he didn't have enough money for them to steal. This incident prompted the young Kipp to become the most dreaded bounty hunter.After Kipp has picked up his $500 bounty reward for the outlaw, a Pinkerton Detective approaches him in the barbershop with a proposition. About a year ago, seven masked robbers held up a train with $100-thousand in currency from the Philadelphia mint bound for Dodge City. They killed three guards and crippled several bystanders. A local trailed the desperadoes and killed four of them and wounded another in the leg. The robbers vanished off the face of the earth and none of the bills from the hold-up have appeared in circulation. The Pinkertons have run into a dead end and they need to reassign their best agents to other cases so the famous detective agency offers Jim Kipp the sum of $10-thousand dollars to do what they couldn't—find the outlaws and the loot. Reluctantly, Kipp takes on the job and rides across the desert to a way station frequented by owlhoots and learns that the survivors paid for three canteens of water. Kipp rides to Twin Peaks, the nearest place that the hoodlums could have ridden in the parched desert wasteland without dying from thirst. Predictably, he receives another chilly reception, especially from a hotel clerk, Bill Rachin (Ernst Borgnine) who walks with a limp. Kipp tells the inquisitive Rachin that he will conclude his business in a week's time. Kipp questions the local doctor, Dr. R.L. Spencer (Harry Antrim of "Baby Face Nelson") about a man who might have needed his help for a gunshot wound a year ago. The doctor isn't exactly truthful with Kipp, but he defends his actions to his daughter. Kipp wasn't a lawman so the good doctor didn't have to violate the sacred patient/physician oath of confidentiality to reveal the truth.Kipp's presence in Twin Peaks has everybody upset and on the prod. Several surprises await anybody who winds up watching this entertaining oater, not the least of which is Kipp's refusal to send an escaped convict back to jail. In fact, the youthful convict defends himself by pointing out that he committed the crime a long time ago and now is a responsible member of the community with a wife and a baby on the way. In the end, according to those moral dictates of the 1950s, the Kipp character stops bounty hunting, becomes the town lawman, and takes Spencer's daughter as his wife.