Gun Belt Film Review

Director: Ray Nazarro
Year: 1953
Rating: 6.0

Decent Western shot in color with a fairly high body count for what seems to be a family film. The ending is way too pat but it was good getting there. George Montgomery is the star as he was in a bunch of Westerns during this period. He never really strikes me as a Western star with his clean-cut looks, always shaven and neatly attired but he has the square jaw of a Western hero. Nearly all his Western films fell somewhere between B films and A films. They give him a young Tab Hunter as his co-star. I am not sure if this was a plus or minus but Hunter was an idol of sorts and acquired the nickname The Sigh Guy. This was only his third film and whatever acting skills he picked up along the way are not really evident yet.

Matt Ringo (John Dehner) breaks out of jail and meets up with his gang (one being played by Jack Elam). A man is offering them a big job but only if they can get Matt's brother Billy (Montgomery) to join them. Matt says of his brother "His weakness is a respect for women". Billy is through though with that life and now runs a dusty dirt-poor ranch and is planning on marrying the woman (Helen Westcott) he loves. He is also taking care of Matt's son Chip (Hunter). He wants nothing to do with the plan to rob a gold wagon, but Matt frames him for a bank job and he has to go on the run. The town is good old Tombstone and sure enough Wyatt Earp (James Millican) and his brother Virgil (Bruce Cowling) are the law. Another group of no-good-niks are headed by Ike Clinton (instead of Clanton) and Curly is one of his men. The gang is together again. No OK Corral in this one though. Circumstances put Chip against Billy and lots of betrayals and dead all around.