Pacionsbo
Absolutely Fantastic
Gutsycurene
Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
Fatma Suarez
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Michael Ledo
This is a 1974 made for TV film, a good old fashion western.Devlin (Steve Forrest) is a free thinking gun slinger who escapes the hangman's noose like Lazarus...sort of. He goes on to help the poor widow Gault (Sharon Acker) save her silver mine. That's about it. No twists. Cameron Mitchell plays the bad guy. "Slicker than bear grease." Available on a 70's 50 film pack.
FightingWesterner
The Hanged Man is a pilot to a proposed television series (executive produced by Bing Crosby!) about a godless gunfighter who miraculously survives his own execution and goes on a spiritual journey through the desert where he comes to the aid of a widow and her young son being terrorized by a vicious mine owner played superbly nasty by Cameron Mitchell.This is slightly above average for a seventies TV movie, with neat writing, much of which ponders the mysteries of life and the fear of death and some good scenes like when the the gunfighter rides out of town in broad daylight, days after his execution, Cameron Mitchell's interrupted bath, and Will Geer's death scene.A good climax occurs as the hanged man comes to the conclusion that he was spared by God to be an angel of vengeance! Cameron Mitchell's death scene is very satisfying.
rixrex
This was to be a series pilot, but didn't get picked up. The typical way a drama series pilot in the 70s was handled was to make it long enough to end up as a movie of the week, so if it didn't get picked up as a series, then at least some production money was recouped. I saw this after seeing The Lazarus Man series, and was surprised at the similarities. This one is typical TV western fare, older gunslinger sees the evil of his ways, and turns into good gunslinger, yet always full of angst about the old ways. The whole idea of a hanged man returning to life was merely a contrivance to make things more interesting. I must say I missed the whole mind-reading ability thing. It wasn't evident apparently because there were plenty of times the lead didn't read someone's mind when if he had, he would have saved himself a lot of trouble. By the way, this movie shows why Cameron Mitchell should always be remembered as the epitome of hammy acting.
culwin
This is a pretty pointless movie. A western about a gunfighter who is hung but somehow comes back to life. He then fights an army of bad guys. These two events are totally unrelated and are the only discernable plot to the movie. Oh yeah, and for some reason this guy can read people's minds through the whole movie. Not much else to say here, except I am wondering how this managed to actually fill 90 whole minutes.
