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Nice effects though.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I first saw "Running Target" many years ago and it had already been kicking around on local TV networks for sometime. Originally released, no doubt, as a second feature with a much bigger movie, it has a typical '50's "B" list provenance with a cast of reliable "B" list stars, all of whom made many more flicks throughout that decade and beyond. By today's standards much of the dialogue and characterizations come across as hackneyed, trite and corny as hell - as a couple of previous reviewers have pointed out with varying degrees of articulation and insight - but... but... there's something undeniably different about this flick's story line and "feel" that just sticks with me after all these years - and I'm not alone in this thinking as several other reviewers have stated similar sentiments. If you're going to review a movie, whether a rave or a slam, at least make an attempt to put it is some sort of context relating to its era, the politics and the prevailing culture of the country at that time. This movie was released a scant ten years after WWll, three years after the Korean War. It was made during a period of unprecedented prosperity in America - the Eisenhower years - and only a few years after the Senator Joseph McCarthy Un-American activities witch hunts were conducted in which any entertainment figure with a hint of "leftist" activity was branded a communist by "tail-gunner" Joe. (Indeed, the three male leads, Franz, Healy and Reeves had all served in the war as combat veterans, with Franz actually shot down in his bomber over occupied Europe. No doubt many others in the production had served as well). Some reviewers take issue with the sheriff, Scott's, "liberal" or "pacifist" leanings throughout the movie: unlike Jaynes, he has no interest in killing any of the escapees. He wants to do his job with no bloodshed at all, if possible. Could it be that his character has already seen enough of killing in his lifetime; could it be that Jaynes just hasn't seen enough yet to satisfy his own blood lust? On the surface, the lone woman in the posse, Smitty, comes across as almost masculine in her resolve to get Kaygo as a supposed revenge for his and the other cons robbing her gas station. Could it be that as a single woman, successful and independent, very unusual for that time, Smitty had to be equally as tough and hard to survive in a very male-oriented environment? By the film's climax, that veneer cracks to reveal something entirely different about her own quest. The direction, camera-work, incidental music and yes, even the script, all hint at something more meaningful than the average "revenge manhunt in the Rockies" flick. I think that the movie achieves its goals, no matter how modest they were, at aspiring to something different, and yes, even a bit haunting, from what you might expect from an example of that genre, at that time.

Arthur Franz seemed to like a variety of roles, and tried to make each of his characters into something larger than the character should naturally be.That seems to be the case here, as he plays the professional lawman, the sheriff, leader of a posse after four escaped convicts, all of whom are very dangerous.This is a bizarre script, and not really believable, as the chief characters are all very one dimensional. The sheriff, even if he's an elected official, is way too complacent and passive towards men who are proved to be dangerous. The woman is a packaged feisty Hollywood cliché who gets soft only when it's a Hollywood scenario. The antagonist sharp shooter is so unstable that one can't imagine him being allowed in the posse.That said, it is watchable, and there are a few good bits. The most telling bit is when a bank robber brags that he never had to shoot anyone, in a jibe against the sharp shooter.The character of the sheriff is ridiculous, and it's hard to say more without spoilers. It's just a silly script. At first we get the feeling that they're all basket cases escaped from an asylum, except the two minor members of the posse seem fairly normal.The sentiments echoed by the sheriff have a passiveness that isn't bad, but just doesn't ring true of a lawman, and also are out of place in the situation.

Whoa, first commenter missed the point of this movie entirely...Jaynes is a killer with a license and a high powered rifle, and volunteers for this manhunt for one reason. To kill. The sheriff has seen him in action many times, doesn't want the dude around, but Jaynes weasels in anyway, thus we have a built in conflict from the start. Three of the escaped convicts aren't murderers, just people seeing a chance at freedom and taking it. The sheriff want's to round them up without bloodshed, he's aware that we all share a common bond regardless of our situations. Yep, we also have the love triangle thing, the jealousy, and many other aspects rolled into this movie, but the main theme is that we all screw up now and then, we're all human, and we shouldn't kill others for the pure enjoyment of pulling the trigger and watching them hit the dirt. That's what Jaynes thrives on, and why the sheriff smashes his high end rifle to bits on a rock toward the end of the movie. Overall theme? There is good and bad in all of us, it just flourishes in different degrees. Trivia: Murvyn Vye couldn't cut the roll of Jaynes, and was fired, replaced by Reeves, who had a very small role in the movie up to that point. He took it and flew with it, did an excellent job portraying the sociopath, the remorseless killer. Of the many movies that were based on Steve Frazee stories, this was one of the best, a sleeper b budget flick that stuck to the script thanks to the insight of budding director/cameraman Jack Couffer, and the killer camera-work of upstart Conrad Hall.

*****SPOILERS***** The film starts with an escaped convict gunned down on an open field by a sheriffs posse hot on his tail. It turns out that he was one of four escaped convicts from a local prison and with the others not that far ahead the posse of four men and one woman goes up the treacherous Rockies to capture them.Right from the start there seems to be a deep resentment against the sharpshooter Jaynes, Richard Reeves, by everyone in the posse led by sheriff Scott, Arthur Franz, for the only reason that I can gather is that Jaynes is good at his job: shooting escaped convicts running away from the law and in many cases being armed and dangerous. The posse that Scott has with him includes a young woman ,Smitty, Doris Dowing. Smitty reasons for being there, besides knowing the area like the back of her hand, is that the leader and most dangerous of the escaped convicts Kaygo, Myron Healey, who's a convicted cop-killer once robbed her gas station and even worse stole her prized rifle. As the last two out of three convicts are captured by the determined sheriffs posse Kaygo is tracked down into a valley. To the shock of sheriff Scott, who was starting to get very serious with Smitty in the romance department, he sees Smitty wearing a dress, which she secretly took with her, and frolicking with Kaygo! As Scott raises his rifle and aims it at Kaygo we hear a shot from the background and Kaygo fall dead on the ground. The shot came from Jaynes rifle that hit and killed Kaygo before Scott could pull the trigger. The movie ends with Scott angry and outraged taking Jaynes's prized and beloved Weatherbee 300 Magnum rifle, the best friend that a man can have, and smashing it to bits against a rock. Was Scott mad at Jaynes for killing Kaygo before he could have killed him himself? As the movie "Running Target" ends there's a very impressive shot, all in one frame, of the dead and blanket covered Kaygo in the foreground with Jayne in the middle sobbing and yelling at Scott, that he has to buy him a new rifle, with sheriff Scott and Smitty walking, in each other arms, up a hill with the majestic Rockie Mountains in the background. This has to be one of the strangest movies ever made with a lawman leading a posse to capture four escaped convicts, two of them convicted murderers, acting like he was a defense attorney in a criminal trial! Like a defense attorney Scott is always trying to explain away the vicious actions and behavior of the convicts in defending their actions as if they've been mistreated when they were children. It's as if Scott was blaming everyone else, the police the courts the accused family and friends, for the crimes that the escaped convicts committed!Smitty was understandable but very foolish, doesn't love make fools of us all, of being right in the open and dancing with Kaygo, her secret love, at the end of the movie. All this within sight of everyone in the posse where they can see that she was helping and abetting an escaped murderer from the law! What other conclusion can one come to? With the only exception of the escaped convicts who acted normal, like convicts, Jaynes who's the most believable and honest person in the movie was made to look like, by the filmmakers, a villain and cold blooded killer? I just don't know what those who made the film "Running Target" were trying to say other then showing just what great liberals they are! It's in them going overboard in showing their ultra liberal prejudices for convicted and escaped convicts they actually approved the crimes that they had committed!