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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

I wanted to but couldn't!

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is an OK film. Yes, each cliché arrives on schedule, each caricature is present and correct, mostly with the recognisable face of a character actor you cannot quite name. Never mind, this is a western. Generally speaking most westerns conform to a formula that pretty much approximates a morality play. Whatever the ingredients good, in the form of a rugged individual, will overcome bad. The women may be innocent and young, world weary and embittered or careworn and wise (or desperate) but most, will love with the hero and one will ride off with him. Robert Mitchum, 'The Town Tamer', is as effective as always. Jan Sterling with the severely styled makeup and hairdo, over sized eyes and turned down mouth is oddly beautiful. Angie Dickinson is strikingly pretty in a small part. The fat baddie appears in child size buggy and duly meets his fate along with and his evil henchman. There are no surprises but it's a satisfying film for a lazy afternoon.

If I would have to describe "Man with the Gun" in a word, I would sadly have to choose 'mundane.' I say 'sadly' because not only does the movie star the great Robert Mitchum, but because it does boast a good setup, a dark tone, and some good initiative-packed promise. But the movie suffers and condescends into being the average, dissenting B-movie Western and a little shy on entertainment value.The premise is a very similar one. Robert Mitchum plays the stereotypical lone gunslinger with a troubled past, a quick draw, a sharp choice of words, and a never-say-die attitude. He is hired by fearful yet reluctant townsmen as a "town-tamer" to clean up the riffraff in their establishment. The riffraff is the hired hands of a land-grabber who does not make a physical appearance until very late in the movie (a trait of the movie that I did like), who are tormenting a homesteader. This is a setup that was done many other times, sometimes worse, sometimes better such as in Clint Eastwood's classic "High Plains Drifter." There are some really good elements to "Man with the Gun" and some really mundane and pall parts as well. The good: the performances not only by Robert Mitchum, but also by the lovely, unsung actress Karen Sharpe. The tone is dark and a little nihilistic, and I appreciated the tactic of hiding the bad guy for the majority of the picture and to avoid the typical clichés of when the Western rancher runs in with the iron-figured gunslinger. The screenwriters also did put the effort into fleshing out the protagonist, however, they only succeeded about halfway. As a gunslinger, the character works, as a human being, the light is very dim.As for the bad parts: mostly the movie just seems really mundane and terrene. There isn't any real connection between any of the characters. None of them stand out. The action scenes are only moderately well-done and they are so spaced apart in favor of droll emptiness that when they do come, they don't heighten the flow of the picture very much. And overall, the picture just follows a rather predictable formula and foundation for a B-movie Western. It's not a bad movie, but it's rather dull, and the ending does not quite work.

This has an unusual element or two, well two actually. Robert Mitchum plays a 'town tamer' and the way things are played out we don't see the main bad guy till the very end. Mitchum is fine in a good solid performance as the aforementioned, 'town tamer' but nobody else really seems up to the task, either in the town to be tamed or on the celluloid before us. How Wilson managed to make 'the beautiful', Jan Sterling look so awful throughout is incredible but it is probably due to the fact she was told to play 'hard' and her features went that way. Shame because it completely undermines the storyline. The 'dancing girls' are pretty bad too and all in all it seems an opportunity to do something different with the western was lost.

Clint Tollinger arrives in a small western town looking for his estranged wife, who left him and now runs the local show saloon. His presence is greeting by suspicion but when the town leaders discover the nature of Tollinger's business they propose that they employ him to clean up the town of the problem of Dade Holman's violent influence. The solution may be just as bad as the problem but they take the risk.With a nice dark character with a lot of anger and pain in the front of the film this western is enjoyable tough. Although the plot is fairly typical of a western b-movie, the tone and edge to it means that it comes over as much more. The basic story sees Tollinger taking on the rule of Holman but it has undercurrents of pain and anger as the lead confronts his wife. We meet Tollinger as a gentle, quiet man but gradually we see him to be violent, heartless and full of bitterness; it is solid development that is at the heart of the film's dark tone. Of course it still follows the genre traditions and will appeal to fans of such while also having enough else going on to make it differ from the Technicolor westerns of the same period.Wilson is responsible for the dark tone as both writer and director; shot is stark black and white he frames some interesting shots and is not afraid to be aggressive or shocking considering the period. Mitchum takes to his character well and always seemed to enjoy the darker more complex characters that some of his westerns would serve him up with. Sterling does well with her firm character until near the end where she becomes more of a genre staple. Support behind these two is roundly good but the film is very much Mitchum's and he knows it.Overall it is a solid western that gradually gets down to just going where you expect it to. However for the vast majority it has a dark tone and feel to it that makes it much more interesting and more likely to appeal beyond the limitations of those that like the colourful b-movie westerns of the period.