Diagonaldi Very well executed

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

MartinHafer When the film begins, Ned Bannon (Joel McCrea) is ambushed and shot. Before blacking out, he notices a very fancy gun used by the shooter. When he comes to, he's in a camp full of settlers heading west. They've treated his wounds and he's very grateful to them. However, they inexplicably are being led by some folks who are intent on leading them onto someone else's land! They know it...but convince the very gullible settlers that Bannon is either wrong or lying. So, Bannon goes to find the landowner and convince him to give him a few days...but the folks leading the settlers reject an offer to talk and simply attack! Soon it looks like a war is about to break out...when Bannon discovers one of the folks leading the settlers has that same fancy rifle!As usual, Joel McCrea is excellent--as he was in all his westerns. While never a sexy sort of leading man in the films, he was big, strong and very believable. I just wish they hadn't made the settlers THIS stupid and pig-headed! That is a big of a weakness of the film, as they are just too easily led...or misled. Still, even with this, it's a good story and worth seeing.

Spikeopath The Tall Stranger is directed by Thomas Carr and written for the screen by Christopher Knopf from a story by Louis L'Amour. It stars Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Michael Ansara, George Neise, Whit Bissell, Adam Kennedy, Barry Kelley and Leo Gordon. A CinemaScope/De Luxe color production, film is filmed on location at two ranches in California, Morrison and Russell, with Wilfred M. Cline the cinematographer. Hans J. Salter scores the music. Plot sees McCrea as Ned Bannon, who has a run in with rustlers and left for dead. Luckily he is found in time by a wagon train heading for California. Nursed back to health, Ned becomes suspicious of two outsiders who are leading the group into a dead-end valley owned by his hostile half-brother. Ned must overcome family hostility to try and avert a range war from occurring.Solid mid 50's Oater boosted by the reliable McCrea and some dark shades within the writing. Running at just over 80 minutes, picture condenses enough old time punch ups and shootings into the story to stop the routine nature of the plotting dragging the pace down. There's even some messages in here to show the writers wanted something more than just a yeehaw production. Sadly the film is badly let down by the pan and scan process and the lifeless colour. There are very few reviews of the film about, but nobody makes mention of the bad print of the film? Certainly the current print doing the rounds for British TV is so bad it takes much away from the film. Cline's (The Last Wagon/The Indian Fighter) location photography is barely seen-is this really in CinemaScope?-and periphery characters are heard but chopped in half! Even the normally radiant Mayo looks washed out due to the tired looking De Luxe color. There's a half decent film in the mix, but even with the best of home cinema set ups to play with, it's nigh on impossible to fully immerse one self in the movie. 6/10

lorenellroy Joel McCrae and Virginia Mayo appeared together in the previous decade when directed by the great Raoul Walsh in the seminal Colorado Territory .The movie under review here is not as good -even close to being -as that wonderful picture but it is a sturdy B movie Western that will give genre lovers a lot of pleasure McCrae is Ned Barton , a Union army Civil war veteran who is shot and seriously wounded when stumbling across evidence of cattle rustling .He is nursed back to health by members of a wagon train moving to California.They are making for Bishop's Valley land they aim to cross without permission of its owner ,the authoritarian landowner Bishop (Barry Kelly).When the train's guide Harper (George Neise)encourages them to stay Harper fears a range war is inevitable -he is Bishop's estranged half brother and knows Bishop will not take kindly to this incursion on his land .Harper has an ulterior motive -he is in alliance with a bandit (Michael Ansara) and schemes for the two parties to kill each other and then use the bandit gang to move in.McCrae tries to act as a buffer between the two sides The movie is well shot and decently acted -especially by Leo Gordon is a rare sympathetic role as Bishop's top hand and with sharper direction would have been better .It is still an okay B Western and will please genre lovers

bkoganbing The final phase of Joel McCrea's career was spent at Allied Artists, the renamed Monogram Pictures, where he did a group of good B westerns. The Tall Stranger based on a Louis L'Amour novel is one of the best.McCrea spots some cattle rustling and is left for dead after being shot by one of the rustlers. He's found by members of a wagon train who nurse him back to health. But Joel's real suspicious of the leader of this train of ex-Confederates who is George Neise. They're looking to settle on land owned by Barry Kelley who is McCrea's half brother and who is estranged from McCrea over the Civil War.What Neise is looking to do is start a nice range war with Kelley and his plan is based on the fact that Kelley's a mean and hard-bitten old soul who shoots first and asks questions later. It's up to McCrea to keep things from boiling over. How successful he is, you'll have to see the film for.You won't be disappointed if you do see the film. Virginia Mayo is the woman with a small son, Phil Phillips, on the wagon train that Joel takes a hankering to. A very mean and cunning villain played by Michael Ansara also has a hankering for Mayo and he's not one to go about the usual courting procedures. Besides those already mentioned such western regulars as Ray Teal, Leo Gordon, Michael Pate, and Whit Bissell are in the cast. It's nice to see Leo Gordon in a role that doesn't call for him to be a mean psychopath. The Tall Stranger is a good fast paced western that fans of the genre and fans of Joel McCrea will definitely like.