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Best movie of this year hands down!

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Gary Cooper heads a stalwart cast in "Day of the Outlaw" director André De Toth's western "The Springfield Rifle" set on the frontier during the American Civil War. The Union Army needs horses to launch its offensive, but Confederate spies out west are stealing those horses. Desperately, the Yankees want to thwart this Southern espionage with counter-espionage of their own, but high-ranking Federal officials insist that spying is not honorable and refuse to go toe-to-toe with the South with spies. Major Lex Kearney (Gary Cooper of "High Noon") is bringing in a herd of horses when he spots superior numbers of horses thieves. Reluctantly, Lex decides to let the rustlers have the horses, and he is cashiered from the service. After he has a yellow streak painted down his back and his escorted from the army fort, our hero launches his own counter-espionage effort and discovers that the spy who has been stealing their horses is a high-ranking official that nobody would have suspected. Meantime, Lex infiltrates the rustlers and gains their confidence. "Gunsmoke" creator Charles Marquis Warren penned the screenplay that is thoroughly routine, but entertaining nonsense. Cooper is in top form, and the mountainous scenery provides a scenic background for all the hard riding and shooting. David Brian makes a good villain, too!

So I'm watching the movie, and with the title in mind, I'm wondering what connection the story line had to an actual Springfield Rifle. You think maybe the film makers threw that in as an afterthought, presumably to capitalize on Jimmy Stewart's success with "Winchester '73"? That's what I've read anyway, and that might explain things. One thing for sure, after hearing it repeated a number of times, I think we all get the business about the rifle being effective on a ratio of five men to one.Now if you've ever seen Chuck Connors in "Branded", the early scene of Lex Kearney (Gary Cooper) being courtmartialed and drummed out of the army for cowardice and gross neglect of duty will look familiar. What was unusual though was seeing him painted with a yellow stripe down his back! Did they really do that? Anyway, that's a pretty good set up for Kearney's turn as a counterintelligence officer for the Union Army once things get going.You know, there was a very cool move that I'm willing to bet was unintentional during the battle with McCool's (David Brian) outlaw bunch. During the fight, Pete Elm (Lon Chaney) shoots Captain Tennick (Philip Carey), and because Tennick's horse was on a bit of a hilly incline, when the horse buckled, he fell on top of Tennick and rolled right over him! I bet they couldn't reproduce that scene in a million years again without hurting man or horse. I had to rewind that part a couple of times just to marvel at it again. There's another interesting point to made of that sequence as well. After the fight was over, Kearney has more greasepaint on his face than when he started! Well be that as it may, the main point of the story had to do with establishing a counter espionage unit within the Union military, a point of contention early on when it was revealed the Confederate Army was using one during the Civil War, and it was thought beneath the dignity of the Union to do the same. I guess there's nothing like success to pave the way. In it's own little piece of the story, I guess the Springfield Rifle earned it's place in history too.

This film has 3 strikes against it from the beginning. First, production values were not the highest (for example, in one scene in the mountains, panning shots show a heavy snow, while closeups show a distinctly powdery snow...actually white sand). Second, the print currently being shown on TCM is very poor (in one scene it looks as if black snow is falling). And, third, Gary Cooper is the only big star in the picture. And, along with production values, there's a big difference in the Rockies of Colorado, where this is supposed to have taken place, and the Sierra Nevadas of California, where this was filmed.Putting those issues aside, it's not a bad story. It's pretty clear early on that Cooper is working undercover, and is not really a disgraced former army officer -- branded yellow. He's working to discover who is selling horse to the Confederates through Colorado. And, as we discover who the real traitors are...well, there are a few surprises.An interesting aspect of this picture are the supporting actors. Lon Chaney, Jr. (a long way down from his salad days as a werewolf), Alan Hale, Jr. (a la "Gilligan's Island"), Fess Parker ("Daniel Boone"), Martin Milner ("Route 66"), among others.

The Springfield Rifle is a fantastic counterespionage story. Sent to the Confederates as a Counterfeit Traitor, Major Lex Kearney (Gary Cooper) penetrates the horse thief ring to uncover the identity of the confederate ring leader. The simple plan is complicated when Major Kearney's son enlists to make good his father's apparent misdeeds and Major's contact is killed. Will the good Major successfully ex-filtrate and prevent the Confederacy from launching its last offensive?Although the title is deceiving, as rifles have comparatively little to do with the story, the plot is fast moving and the tension increases incrementally with each new disaster. The film favorably compares to John Ford's great cavalry trilogy and many of the techniques of Rio Grande seem to have been successfully repeated.