Republic Pictures was known as the poverty row studio that made great westerns...both of the "A" and "B" variety. "Hellfire" was an ambitious effort to turn out an "adult western".The story has gambler Jeb Smith (William Elliot) trying to fulfill a promise to a dying derelict old preacher (H.B. Warner) to build his church as the result of the old man having taken a bullet meant for Zeb. Zeb takes the preacher's bible or "Rule Book" as he calls it, and sets out to raise the necessary funds. He happens upon a gunfight between the female gunfighter Doll Brown (Marie Windsor) and Lew Stoner (Harry Woods) and decides to pursue her with the intention of using the reward on her to build his church.Also in pursuit of Doll are the Stoner Brothers (Jim Davis, Paul Fix and Louis Faust) and Marshal Bucky McLean (Forrest Tucker) who has reasons of his own for chasing Doll. The various parties meet here and there and Windsor even gets to sing a couple of forgettable tunes in her guise as a saloon singer. Does Zeb make Doll see the light? Does good triumph over evil? "Hellfire" is short on action and long on preaching. Director R.G. Spingsteen drags out the unlikely story over a long 90 minutes. There are none of the traditional Republic fight scenes and gunplay is kept to a minimum. Elliott sleepwalks through his role but Windsor is charming as the "femme fatale" of the piece (she was after all the Queen of noir). Tucker adds what little color there is as the third member of the triangle. The rest of the cast do what they can in limiting roles.Elliott, formerly known as "Wild Bill" in his "B" picture days had begun appearing in the studio's "A" features in 1946. This one was near the end of his tenure with Republic. But Republic always populated their features with great supporting casts of recognizable faces.In addition to those already mentioned, roles of varying sizes went to Emory Parnell, Grant Withers, Denver Pyle, Trevor Bardette, Dewey Robinson (as a bartender, natch), Richard Alexander, Hank Worden, Stanley Price, Fred Kohler Jr. and Kenneth MacDonald. Devout western fans will recognize most if not all of these names.It's a shame the director Springsteen couldn't find more to do for veterans H.B. Warner, Harry Woods and Grant Withers who appear only briefly."Hellfire" has its moments but to me was an overall disappointment.

Card cheat Bill Elliott (Zeb) changes his ways and promises to build a church out in the Wild West after Minister H. B. Warner (brother Joseph) takes a bullet for him. The building of a church had been Warner's dream and Elliott gives his word to raise the money for it. However, he also commits to following God's path. Things get tricky when he comes across Marie Windsor (Doll) on the hunt for her sister. She has pretty much everyone after her and there is a reward out for her - dead or alive.A peculiarity of this film is the way in which it is coloured. I'm not sure how intentional it was but the colours are heavily biased towards blue-ish green and something rather peachy. I'm not sure whether this is due to the quality fading but it certainly is different. The story covers quite a lot of ground and I enjoyed the ride, despite some heavy over-preachy nonsense, particularly at the end. Shame about that, really. The ending is somewhat ambiguous - what happens next? The standout in the cast is Marie Windsor who plays her bad girl role very convincingly and has you rooting for her all the way. Go on Windsor! Shoot the holy guy. I'm fed up of his wholesome ways. The film is a buddy buddy movie at its core as we follow the relationship that develops between Elliott and Windsor as they seek their goals together. And it's not bad.

I have heard of Marie Windsor, but never saw her in a film prior to this. Because she toiled at poverty-row studios I guess I had a prejudice against her without ever having seen her, but boy! She was terrific. Her character as Doll in this western with a religious twist was strongly written and strongly played. William Elliot seemed just right in his role as a bad boy trying to walk the straight-and-narrow. This really is a unique film in the history of westerns and the Trucolor makes this a time capsule of poverty-row color technology. Essentially a two-color process, it shows up in red-orange and green, although the skies appear as blue. The print streamed on Netflix was in excellent shape, with no excessive lines or dirt present, and the overall experience was one of gratitude that they have managed to save so many of these low-budget studio films. To the casual viewer who thinks only the majors could achieve quality, the modern-day viewing of some of these B films proves that they too could achieve quality if not consistently then at least occasionally.

Real western addicts acknowledge that Republic Studios, despite their cost-cutting measures, turned out the absolute best horse operas in history. This fine and little known movie is exceptional even by Republic standards. No subtle stuff here....just an unusually tight and suspenseful script, committed performances from seasoned western stars and, of course, plenty of the usual gunfight action.