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Such a frustrating disappointment

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

"Rebel in Town" offers up an interesting character reversal with the portrayals of John and Nora Willoughby (John Payne, Ruth Roman), in that it's the wife's role to maintain a balance of composure and common sense when her only child is accidentally shot and killed when a trio of ex-Confederate soldiers makes it's way to the town of Kittreck Wells. One would expect the woman in the situation to become hysterical and call out for blind vengeance, but here she maintained the voice of reason long enough for the truth of the incident to reveal itself.The Mason clan was an interesting bunch I'd have to say. Led by Bible thumper Bedloe (J. Carroll Naish), the clan always took a vote when it came to important family decisions. Although I didn't catch any vote when Pa took a whip to bad boy Wesley (John Smith) for scheming against brother Gray (Ben Cooper). You know, I would have sworn that the part of Gray Mason was portrayed by Richard Thomas, except the math wouldn't have worked for the year the picture was released. Thomas would have been five years old, but if you pull up their pics on IMDb you'll see the resemblance.The movie eventually reestablishes your conventional norms by the end of the story, as John Willoughby realizes his wife's advice is sound and successfully dissuades the good folks of Kittreck Wells to lay down their hangman's noose. I always hate to see a young kid get killed in one of these old time Westerns, so that's my biggest downside for the picture. However it was satisfying that Pa Willoughby was vindicated, and didn't have to exact revenge with a restless gun.

In postwar Civil War, a father and his four sons, all former Rebel soldiers, eke out a living robbing, always on the run. When three of the brothers ride into town to get water, tragedy occurs when one of them guns down a young boy who has fired at them with his cap pistol. Most of the focus is on five main characters: Bedloe Mason, his sons Gray and Wesley, John Willoughby and his wife, Nora.Bedloe, the patriarch of the Mason clan, and his four sons were forced to leave their burned out home in Alabama after the Civil War. Bedloe's main concern is to keep his family together, so whenever the family faces trouble, they vote on what they should do. After the boy is killed, the vote is to keep on the run, leaving the trouble behind them.Gray, the youngest Mason son, is uncomfortable with the idea of running away. After long introspection, he decides the only honorable thing to do is to return to the town, regardless of consequences. Gray's decision disturbs Wesley, the unrepentant killer who is afraid this will result in him being implicated.After the killing, John Willoughby, father of the unfortunate youngster, loses grip with reality as he wrestles with grief and desire for revenge at any cost. Recognizing this and not wanting any further bloodshed, Nora struggles to keep her man rational and sane. For that reason she refuses to identify a wounded man John brings home as one of the Rebels she saw in town on that fateful day.Though a "B" western, "Rebel in Town" benefits from good acting, competent direction and an intelligent, well-written script with lots of things for us to think about. Bedloe, a religious man, tries to comfort his troubled son with the thought that sometimes there is no answer so it is better just to let things be, further suggesting that since we are all the children of God, He is responsible for what we do, whether good or bad. Gray counters that he cannot consider his brother an agent for God. Such kind of writing is hardly the stuff of usual westerns.

Rebel In Town is set in the post Civil War west where the surrender at Appomattox hasn't ended conflict in the minds of some. One of those is John Payne who was a Union Army major in the war, but now has settled back on his ranch with wife Ruth Roman and son Bobby Clark. Payne feels we've got a big law and order problem with a lot of former Confederates turning outlaws to survive and is the first to volunteer for any posse to track them down.But when the Mason family, J. Carrol Naish and his four sons come riding into town for supplies it's a recipe for trouble. When little Bobby Clark shoots at the family from behind with a cap pistol, one of the Masons turns and returns fire killing the kid instantly. The Masons beat it out of town.The rest of Rebel In Town concerns the actions of Payne and the rest of the town in apprehending the criminals and the Mason family who are torn with what to do.The Masons are a whole lot like the Hannesseys in The Big Country. The budget for the B western Rebel In Town is a fraction of what The Big Country was, yet William Wyler seems to have been influenced by the relationship of family patriarch Naish with the most reckless of his sons John Smith in creating the characters that Burl Ives and Chuck Connors played in The Big Country.As for Payne, he's in his vengeance quest persona, something not seen in him since his highly rated performance in the noir classic Kansas City Confidential.Rebel In Town is no frills B western with some nice performances from the cast. John Payne's fans will like his work here.

Most Westerns use one of a limited number of standard plots, but it's hard to categorize this movie. Its setting -- a small frontier town -- merely serves as a background for a drama of revenge and reconciliation which could easily be recast as a Greek tragedy. Its central question certainly rises above the usual concerns of Westerns: can the sacrifice of one man's guilty son make up for the death of another man's innocent son?Or, as J. Carroll Naish puts it in the last scene: "What the sons of some men do to the sons of others ... there's a tragedy of the world."John Payne, (sporting a mustache), gets top billing here but his character is absent from many of the movie's key scenes. Ben Cooper actually plays the main character as his feelings of guilt over the death of an innocent boy propels most of the plot. Ruth Roman seems miscast as a frontier wife and mother. The less said about the two juvenile performers, (Bobby Clark and Mimi Gibson), the better.There's a vivid flogging scene in the movie's second half in which J. Carroll Naish takes a whip to the back of his son, John Smith, who's tied shirtless to a tree. This may be the American cinema's only major whipping in which a father strikes his own son.