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I love this movie so much

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

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

The more I think about this story the less sense it seems to make. I'm speaking particularly of Lyle Bettger's character, the black-hearted mayor of Stone Junction, Jesse Yates. Where did all the hatred come from? He had the never seen Indian Ed Little Bear killed because his daughter Marie (Tracy Olsen) was interested in him romantically. But Yates had been married to an Indian squaw himself, so where's the rationale? If one was offered I missed it and I'm not going back to figure it out. But if Yates had all that power to sway the citizens of his town to get rid of Joe Conners (Tom Drake) as a fall guy, he could just as easily have convinced them to approve of a marriage between his daughter and the Indian. But then I guess, we wouldn't have had this story.Unlike some of the other reviewers here, I'm not familiar with producer A.C. Lyles, but having read some of the comments my main question about the picture seems to have been answered. That being, why are the principals so old looking? I'm a long time Lon Chaney fan but gosh, he looked about ready to fall over any minute. As gunslinger and sheriff Johnny Reno, Dana Andrews was pushing nearly sixty himself, and even though Jane Russell was only in her mid-forties, she looked a bit worn and tired as well. Well now I know some of the history behind these films, making the picture slightly more palatable.I'll say one thing that was hilarious though. Remember when Reno took that stick of dynamite and threw it toward the town folk shooting at him? What would possess someone to run over and pick it up, but that's just what Jake Reed (Robert Lowery) did, and got blown sky high for his trouble. At least the dummy stand-in did, that was priceless.The other thing that caught my attention was the amount of money the town was willing to pay Johnny Reno to leave Conners behind and keep on riding - ten thousand dollars! It didn't look like there were enough folks in Stone Junction to come up with that kind of dough. But as I said earlier, not a lot here made sense, so that element just added to my puzzlement.

Paramount was the last major studio to jump into television production in the late 1960's. Studio founder Adolph Zukor was against TV from the start, treating it as the enemy, therefore they never made series for the networks like the other studios did. Sure, they would rent out space to shows like Bonanza, but they insisted on making only features, and had AC Lyles make a series of low-budget westerns with aging stars to fill out the second half of a double bill.Johnny Reno was the best of a bad lot, it's low budget origins more than obvious. Shot in Techniscope (cheaper than Panavision)and color, it has a surprisingly strong ending centered around racism and miscegenation.Others in the series like Town Tamer and Hostile Guns are downright unwatchable. Shortly after this, the studio changed ownership and installed Robert Evans as production chief and in a few short years Paramount TV was one of the top suppliers of network shows. No more movies like this one were made. Anyway, many years later Lyles redeemed himself in my eyes by being an executive consultant on the "Deadwood" series on HBO, one of the best western series ever made. Thanks, AC

Aside from a sappy intro and closing tune, this is a pretty good western, though the main theme is a bit familiar. After all, there must have been a thousand westerns that had a big, bad boss-man who basically ran a town and got his own way...only to meet up with honest man who could not be intimidated or bought. Fortunately, however, there were enough new elements to the familiar story to make it worth seeing.The film begins with Dana Andrews happening upon a couple men running from the law in a nearby town. They assume Andrews is after them and begin firing. Andrews kills one and captures the other. Oddly, they thought he was after him but he just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. So, he takes the lone survivor to a nearby town for trial, but it soon becomes apparent that the town has no interest in a trial--they will hang the guy! Well, Andrews isn't about to let that happen and he gets the VERY reluctant Sheriff (Lon Chaney, Jr.) to help. There's way too much unsaid that he needs to investigate, but no one in the town seems to be talking--they all just want a good hanging and it's the local rich boss that seems to be behind everything.Good acting and direction along with a few decent plot twists make this one worth your time. Not a great film but a very good one. And, like a typical A.C. Lyles production of the 1960s, it employs actors whose careers had seen better days--and makes good use of them.

Another in producer A.C. Lyles' string of geezer westerns. This time, instead of just producing the picture, Lyles decided to try his hand at writing it. Bad move. The scripts on this series of westerns were never particularly good in the first place, and many of them were written by Steve Fisher, who also wrote this one. His teaming up with Lyles doesn't seem to have improved things any, and actually this particular entry is a bit more rambling and disconnected than the usual Lyles western. Although it's full of old and familiar faces, and worth a look maybe for that value alone, the picture itself isn't very good at all. Slow as molasses, it seems to be afflicted with the same arthritis that many of its principals probably had. Making an action picture with a cast whose youngest member is in his late 50s wasn't a real good idea. This isn't a real good movie. Skip it.