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

Undescribable Perfection

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The Plunderers is directed by Joseph Pevney and written by Bob Barbash. It stars Jeff Chandler, John Saxon, Dolores Hart, Marsha Hunt and Jay C. Flippen. Music is by Leonard Rosenman and cinematography by Eugene Polito.Trail City, and 4 delinquent cowboys ride into town with attitude and carefree abandon. The Trail City residents - spineless, all except one man. One man who considers himself only half a man on account of his disability. That man is Civil War veteran Captain Sam...War didn't just destroy his arm.The few critical appraisals and reviews that exist for The Plunderers are keen to associate the picture with other notable pictures released previously, which in this instance is something of a curse when they happen to be well revered classics. Yet this is no knock off, it has its own identity. The four young delinquents here are not dashing dandy types, the makers make every effort to put their failings as human beings up at the front of the portrayals. These are young men, out of their depth, even spineless, but of course the town doesn't know this as they are too busy cowering in the shadows.The messages are obvious in the play, but Pevney doesn't use his sledgehammer to enforce those parts of the narrative. It's perhaps no surprise how things pan out with Chandler's embittered war veteran, as he wrestles with both his conscience and his disability, but Pevney has a good knack for slow burning the atmosphere to bring rewards for film's finale. Chandler, in his last Western, is suitably broody, Hunt and Hart are beauties to behold, while of the bad boys it's Saxon as a diabolical Mexican - with scary eyebrows - and the only one who is old enough to shave, who strikes the highest villain chords.Elsewhere there's a great musical score provided by double Academy Award Winner Rosenman, very much akin to something that the moody Twilight Zone episodes would use. It also at times has the feel of the score Alan Silvestri would rustle up for Predator some 27 years later. Polito's photography is crisp, where in conjunction with Pevney's camera angles and lighting techniques keeps the claustrophobia factor high in this one location setting.Crackerjack! A dandy of a black and white Oater waiting to be discovered by more Western fans. It's a keeper for sure. 8/10

"Away All Boats" director Joseph Pevney's "The Plunders" looks like a cross-between of "Bad Day at Black Rock" and "The Wild One." Basically, leading man Jeff Chandler is cast as Sam Christy, a former Civil War officer who has lost the use of his left arm. The loss of that limb--he still retains the entire arm--serves as a metaphor for his loss of courage. Like the one-armed Spencer Tracy hero in "Bad Day at Black Rock," Sam is sullen and filled with self-pity. He lives alone on a ranch with nobody to take care of him and his relationship with a hotel owner has gone sour. Four young cowpokes ride into the meager town of Trail City. They resemble the juvenile delinquent characters on motorcycles in "The Wild One." In fact, the opening narration sounds like the cautionary words in the Marlon Brando epic because the narrator contends that it could happen to any town. These punchers are fresh out of Dodge City where they blew their wad in no time and don't have two-bits between them. Tired and ornery, they see Trail City as a place to square accounts for the raw treatment that they received in Dodge City. They start out by refusing to pay for a bottle of whiskey at the local saloon and the town sheriff hauls them into the hoosegow. They spent the night in jail and agree to leave peaceably until they get out. Initially, they take $73 worth of clothes from a mercantile store and follow that up by getting a free room in the hotel. Nobody has enough courage to curb their wanton urges and the local sheriff buckles under pressure. Finally, they shoot the poor man down in the street, collect all the firearms in town and settle back into the saloon. By now everybody in town is quaking in their boots at the sight of the vandals. Mike Baron (James Westerfield of "The Sons of Katie Elder") refuses to serve them in his saloon and William 'Mule' Thompson (Roger Torrey of "The Nun and the Sergeant")batters him into submission. Afterward, Sam Christy bucks heads with them and the biggest of the four roughs him up. Sam exits town and decides to have nothing to do with the quartet of hellions. Eventually, the young daughter of the local storekeeper, Ellie Walters(Dolores Hart of "King Creole")prompts Sam to take another chance at the foursome. Sam rallies the rest of the townspeople and they stand together and whip the hellions. Sam takes on the Goliath-like Mule in a knife fight and Ellie turns a six-gun on the romantically inclined Hispanic gang member, Rondo (John Saxon of "Enter the Dragon") when he pulls a knife on Sam. In a showdown on the street, Sam guns down Jeb Lucas Tyler (Golden Globe nominated actor Ray Stricklyn of "The Return of Dracula")as the rowdy twenty-year old charges down the street blasting away with two guns. Sam convinces the rest of the townspeople to let the last one, Davy (Dee Pollock of "Kelly's Heroes") ride out with the memory of the event to haunt him forever.Clearly, "The Plunders" is a morality yarn that pits old against young, weak against strong, and cowardly against brave. Joseph Pevney's taut, bottled-up direction and Bob Barbash's tip-lipped, intelligent script make this 93-minute pressure-cooker thriller worth watching, even though it's pretty predictable. Meaning, you know that Sam Christy is going to lick these young, immature hellions. Mind you, "The Plunders" isn't top-drawer entertainment, but it qualifies as above-average thanks to uniformly fine performances and contemplative pacing. Saxon looks like he is giving a warm-up act for his treacherous bandit in the 1966 western "The Appaloosa." Saxon has a moment before he dies at the hands of Dolores Hart when he talks about the prejudice that he has experienced as a Hispanic at the hands of whites. As usual, Chandler plays a stern, taciturn man who has to have his cage rattled before he shows his true colors. The only flaw in his performance occurs during a fight at his ranch with one of the plunders. Dolores Hart is around for good looks and everything appears appropriately dusty.

As a player Jeff Chandler had several westerns to his credit most notably Broken Arrow where he got an Academy Award nomination. His last film in the western genre is The Plunderers where he's cast as a crippled Civil War veteran who is forced to lead his town of Trail's End in taking a stand against four juvenile toughs.Some people are born leaders and like it or not in tough situations the job falls to them. John Saxon, Dee Pollock, Ray Stricklyn and Roger Torrey all come to town and start essentially pushing people around. They beat up bartender James Westerfield and later shoot down sheriff Jay C. Flippen who is a tired old man who should have retired from that job long ago. Flippen is symbolic himself of this post Civil War Texas town.Chandler is a former cavalry leader in the Civil War and he's like Lucas McCain in The Rifleman, the one in the town the people look up to in a moment of crisis. He's as tired as any of the rest of them and just wishes they would ride away, but when that doesn't happen despite his physical limitations Chandler steps to the plate.There is a lot of criticism of The Plunderers with some saying this is just a modern juvenile delinquent story set in the west. That maybe so, but what was Billy the Kid for instance if not a most murderous juvenile delinquent. This film is a harbinger of the Young Guns films or the Lee Marvin classic, The Spikes Gang. The only difference is that the punks aren't glamorized here. I swear all that was needed was for Sal Mineo to be cast as one of the punks.The Plunderers was done for Allied Artists which we know was formerly Mongram Pictures. Back in their day they did their share of B westerns and the sets were used most notably for The Cisco Kid movies. The Plunderers is a great deal above the quality of those horse operas and it's one of Jeff Chandler's better latter day films.

Better-than-usual western has interesting premise: Four young cowboy-hoodlums take over a sleepy town population 50. The whole thing looks and feels like a Twilight Zone episode (black and white) without the fantasy. Two gorgeous women, Delores Hart and Marsha Hunt; a fair performance from Jeff Chandler; and vivid portrayals by the relatively unknown youngsters including a promising one by John Saxon. Sleazy early 60's B-Movie fun of the Juvenile Delinquent genre.