The Proud Ones
Directed by Robert D. Webb
Written by Edmund H. North and Joseph Petracca from a novel by Verne Athanas
1956/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Instant
Cass Silver, Marshal Flat Rock Kansas: Used to be a nice quiet place.
Sally, Cass’ Woman: That’s the sound of money, Cass. I like it noisy.
This is a solid, if unexceptional, Western with something of a High Noon feel.
Cass Silver (Robert Ryan) is the marshal of Flat Rock. His girlfriend Sally (Virginia Mayo) urged him to flee from his last position to avoid confronting corrupt and evil gambling boss ‘Honest John’ Barnett (Robert Middleton). As the film begins, the trail hands who have brought a huge herd of cattle to market are being paid and preparing for a wild few days in Flat Rock. Cass rides out and warns them to leave half their pay and all their guns in camp. The townspeople are ecstatic to welcome the cowhands, having raised all their prices sky high in greeting, and Barnett moves his gambling operation into town.
One of the cowhands is Thad Anderson (Jeffrey Hunter). He has not left his guns in camp. This is because he has vowed revenge on Cass for having killed his father, who was a gunslinger for Barnett in the last town. Barnett had told him that his father was unarmed at the time.
This time Cass is determined to confront Barnett. He rounds up several of Barnett’s confederates for murder and puts them under the care of the jailer Jake (Walter Brennan) to await trial. Everybody in town, including Sally and Cass’s deputy (Arthur O’Connell), pleads with Cass to lay off Barnett. Finally, the deputy quits. Despite a number of run-ins, Cass hires Thad to take the deputy’s place. It is never quite clear where Thad’s loyalties lie.
I always look forward to seeing anything with Robert Ryan in it and he never disappoints. It’s nice to see him as a good guy. I felt like I had seen large chunks of this before but it was engaging throughout. My husband, the Western aficionado, gave this movie four stars – high praise indeed coming from him.
Trailer
