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

Great Film overall

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Like most other reviewers, I hated this movie. Despite MGM providing their usual excellent photography, a fine director, and a solid cast of usually good actors, the movie is one of the worst ever. The entire blame lies with author E. K. Doctorow, a Columbia University trained empty-head who knows exactly nothing about the west, as he knew nothing about New York when he wrote "Ragtime." Henry Fonda plays the cowardly sheriff, and his face well-reflects his self-hatred. When super-bad-guy Aldo Ray comes to town the rapes and murders (as well as his bad grooming and body odor) are not interfered with, and he sets fire to the town in disgust.As Fonda sifts through the ashes, a wagon-load of prostitutes rolls into town and sets up shop in the isolated and desolate town -- instead of watering the horses and moving on. Everybody hangs around for a while, until the super-bad-guy returns. Then the cowardice continues in full bloom.(BIG spoiler) Fonda, the film's alleged hero, persists with his interference to protect the murderer-rapist-bad-smeller, and manages to get his best friend and a town businessman, both needlessly killed. BUT THEN... but then, Fonda catches Mr. Bad with his pistol empty, and shoots 5 bullets into him. Not quite dead, Mr. Bad rises up, and as Fonda's stepson tries to blast Mr. Bad,Fonda interferes and the bullet hits and kills Fonda's wife. Just beautiful! This awful movie has just recently re-surfaced on DVD along with about a dozen fine MGM westerns. This is the rotten apple. Please don't buy it.

Recap: A brutish and violent gunfighter holds the little frontier settlement of Hard Times in terror. Local mayor Will Blue is helpless, and the terror only ends with the gunfighter burning the town and riding out. The town is almost deserted, but when a saloon manager, along with his group of prostitutes settles in the town to serve the miners from the surrounding mountains, there is hope once again. But Blue struggles with both his own guilt of having done nothing and other locals accusations of the same. And sometimes the gunfighter will return, will Blue be able to defend his town then?Comments: A rather uneventful and badly acted western. Especially the movies threat, the gunfighter, is so exaggerated so that the threat seems just silly. The it is supposed that the drama should come from the tension between the surviving townsfolk, but it never gets really interesting. One problem is that the supposed hero, Blue, is nothing of the kind. And without a hero and an absent threat, there is no real reason to care. Is there? In fact, Blue is so little of a hero that he doesn't even succeeds to gain redemption when the villain returns. He doesn't do anything until the villain is out of bullets, and defenseless. Only then does Blue fight him.With nothing to care about, the movie uninteresting at best, and boring at worst. It certainly is disappointing. A veteran such as Henry Fonda should be better in choosing his projects, and do better with the material at hand. But I guess he didn't care either… 3/10

I had high hopes for this, but wound up despising it. This is pacifism with a broad brush, absolutely sophomoric in it's persistent delivering of the kind of message that makes "turn the other cheek" resemble heroism.I just hope impressionable children are not being exposed to this defeatist philosophy.Pushing this movie's obvious message to kids is like passing around the bubonic plague.The actors are first-rate but are squandered here in my opinion.In WWII actors flew bombers or fought for their country on the beaches and were slogging along in the infantry for years in dangerous terrain. Regrettably, things have deeply changed in the USA. Hollywood has become the mouthpiece of the left. This movie was produced in the 60s and bears the stamp of those times, times when the inmates tried to run the asylum--and very nearly succeeded.So watch and enjoy the fine acting in this film, but don't succumb to it's defeatist message.

This is a great Henry Fonda film from 1967 where Fonda plays the role as Mayor Will Blue who is a peace abiding man and hates to use his fists or a weapon against anyone. One day a man visits his town and takes over the entire town, raping women and burning the entire town to the ground. Mayor Will Blue is not very well liked by his town folk, however, he still wants to remain in what is left of his town and refuses to runaway like he has done in his past life. Molly Riordan,(Janice Rule) becomes rather close to Will Blue and also Keenan Wynn, (Zar, Whiskey & Girls) visits the town and opens up a Saloon for prostitutes and booze. Lon Chaney Jr. and Elisha Cook Jr., "I Wake Up Screaming" make very brief appearances in this film but give great supporting roles. This is a great Henry Fonda film which he made when he reached the age of 60 years and was beginning to find very few roles on the Silver Screen and then decided to perform on the Broadway Stage in New York City. Enjoy.