Watch Rimfire For Free

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

When a gambler known as "The Abilene Kid" is tried, convicted and hung for the apparent robbery of the U.S. Gold mint, his spirit seems to return from beyond to haunt and ultimately kill the men who framed him. Everybody in this small western town is running scared, and it is up to a U.S. agent (James Millican) to get to the bottom of this with the help of the local sheriff (Victor Kilian) and his pretty niece (Mary Beth Hughes) who falls in love with him. The slow-moving first half of this rather short B western moves into quite a different mood as it changes to ghost story. Or is it? Like Scooby Doo and other ghost movie spoofs where somebody is obviously using the events of the recent past to get information on the location of the gold. But who is it, and how does the U.S. agent discover the identity? Or is it really a voice from beyond scaring people literally to their doom? This western has various elements of its structure which makes it a rank above the standard cowboy/Indian shoot em' out, but the plot is pretty obvious of where it is going. The photography in the ghostly visits is appropriately dark which adds much needed mood. In spite of obvious plot holes, the film remains an interesting change from the typical western fare audiences were getting at the time. George Cleveland provides some wit as a local judge, while some cornball humor is thrown in by Fuzzy Knight. Another plus with the DVD is the print transfer is quite outstanding, making it look much higher budgeted than many of the public domain transfers of B westerns from Monogram, PRC and other poverty row studios which released dozens of these every year.

This is a good little western from Lippert studios, and I don't understand the low rating by IMDb reviewers. The film is a mystery story and is well-written, taut and compact, and in only 64 minutes. The cast, led by James Millican, does a uniformly good job, and there is nary a bad acting performance in sight from the supporting cast. One is taken aback by seeing suave, urbane Reed Hadley out in the scrubbrush, but it turns out he's the suave, urbane gambler in the story.Now, we're not talking MGM or Paramount here and so you have to consider economics, but production values are better than expected and there is a good deal of action during this just-over-an-hour affair. Overlook a couple of plot holes and a time-killing romance and you have an entertaining movie which has been unfairly neglected over the years. This was included in a DVD with "Little Big Horn", which is a better picture, but nevertheless, "Rimfire" is still a cut above.

The Abiline Kid is set up and convicted by a Kangaroo court for using marked cards. Executed by hanging, he seemingly returns as a ghost to terrorize and wreak vengeance on the guilty town that murdered him.Rimfire is loaded with great character actors, including James Millican, Reed Hadley, Jason Robards Sr., and Fuzzy Knight, alongside two previous Universal monsters, The Werewolf Of London's Henry Hull and Glen Strange, the last of the classic Frankenstein monsters!Although it's running time could (and should) have been stretched a little for greater suspense, this is still an entertaining, if compact, western whodunit with lots of great scenes.It can also be viewed as sort of a forerunner (along with Django Il Bastardo) to Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter. In fact, the three would make a great triple feature.

With the name B. Reeves Eason in the credits as director, one would not be out of line expecting a fast-paced and action-packed adventure. Eason was widely known and respected for the machine-gun speed of his movies. But upon watching this film, which should be retitled "Misfire," one would not be out of line suspecting that Eason directed it while under anesthesia. James Millican, a not unlikable character player, gets to play the tough guy that all the saloon girls ogle, but he has neither the looks nor the charisma to carry off this kind of Western leading role. There are plenty of fine character actors in this movie, and the plot could conceivably have been used for a tense little programmer. Instead, this one moves like frozen molasses. The actors speak at half speed, the editing is at quarter speed, and there is very little to hold one's attention. The slowness of this movie must be seen to be believed, but please....trust me. It isn't worth that effort.