In Technicolor and starring Bob Hope this story could have been hilarious if played for laughs; instead we get an extremely earnest black & white psychological western starring a 'serious' Frank Sinatra, with an appropriately moody score by Sinatra's regular arranger Nelson Riddle.Considering that he produced the film himself, Sinatra has strangely elected to play a complete louse in the title role. Johnny is with good reason hated by the entire town of Cripple Creek, with the inexplicable exception of Phyllis Kirk (added to the script presumably to make us give a damn whether he lived or died). Moral salvation comes in the form of William Conrad and Keenan Wynn; the former is the one gunfighter even meaner and deadlier than Sinatra's late brother Red Concho, the latter an absolute blast in a late-appearing cameo as a macho gun-toting preacher who pep talks Johnny into finally finding his mojo.As the film was building up to the usual town square shoot-out, I was thinking to myself that now would be a good moment for the assembled townfolk to shoot Conrad while his attention was on Sinatra, when - ah, but that would be telling...! Despite being such a dead shot and with so little concern for human life, with his first shot Conrad naturally only wounds Sinatra by shooting him in the shoulder; if it had been other member of the cast than the star he would have been instantly dispatched to Boot Hill for the rest of eternity.

Okay, Sinatra was pretty limp in his first oater. The wig was a mistake and a distraction. A cheater up front would have been enough. The script's vacillation between making him a villain and a hero was unfortunate. He should have remained a weasel to the end and been shunned for it. It took the killing of one of the townspeople to get the rest of the villagers to take matters into their own hand(guns). That said, this is still an enjoyable and sometimes engrossing play. There are several great radio players - Bill Conrad, Howard Petrie, Bill Bouchey, Russell Thorson and others who give gravitas to the script. Wallace Ford is a pathetic rabbit and Keenan Wynn is wonderful as the gunslinger-turned-preacher. The poker game is the centerpiece of the show and it is a perfect metaphor for the kind of soft tyranny that can encroach upon a community. The street set is deliberately stylized, making the film look more like a live television play than a motion picture. With some tweaking to the script this could have been a great film. It could certainly be adapted into a great play.

Most film critics agree that Frank Sinatra was a bit miscast as the titular character "Johnny Concho" (1956). That said, he does as much as he can with this thankless role of a coward who slowly comes to grips with his failings. Sinatra's Concho has the run of a small western town due to his older brother Red's reputation as a ruthless gunslinger. His misrule comes to a crashing end, however, when his brother is gunned down. Unfortunately for kid brother Frankie, he doesn't find out about Red Concho's death until the men who killed him (played by William Conrad and Christopher Dark) inform him nonchalantly during a poker game. For most of the film afterward, Conrad and Dark insult, degrade, humiliate, and in general, make utter fools out of cowardly Frank and the rest of the weak-willed townsfolk. Conrad, playing a cold-blooded enigmatic murderer, has a field day with his role while his terse partner-in-crime (Dark) is the perfect compliment. Shaking in his boots, Frank ends up riding away with his girlfriend (Phyllis Kirk) to start a new cowardly life in another town. All's well that ends well, however. After getting an earful of criticism and a much-needed wake-up call from a firebrand preacher (Keenan Wynn in top form), Frank decides to finally become a real man and return to face down Conrad and Dark. File the ending under the category of "a man's got to do what a man's got to do." Luckily for Frank, since he can't hit the side of a barn door with a load of buckshot, the townsfolk all pitch in to help him during the final shootout. In wrenching detail, Conrad and Dark end up writhing on the ground as their bodies fill up with lead. And it couldn't happen to two more deserving fellows.Not really much in this film except for Conrad and Dark's performances. Keenan Wynn also livens up the proceedings, but his screen time is all too brief. Sinatra, appearing embarrassed throughout, does the best he can with his weak character. Ms. Kirk, as always, looks like the best woman west of the Pecos.

Frank Sinatra was far from the ideal actor for westerns. He was a great actor, From Here to Eternity and The Man with The Golden arm are a proof of that, but he did not have the physique of a western hero, you identified him as an urban guy. But he tried to do his job well in Johnny Concho, the fact that the film was a failure at the box office was not his fault. I blame it on two factors: a) the story was too unusual, specially in the fact that Sinatra behaves more like a villain than as a hero throughout the movie. In a genre where people kind of expected a certain pattern, to break away from it the film has to be very good. b) the story is not convincing, it is hard to believe that a whole town will allow Sinatra to do anything he wants just because they are afraid of his brother. Also when a man shows him a special holster that will open sideways so he has not to draw the gun you wonder that if that will make him invincible, why all the gunfighters have not adopted it? I think that this film should not have been withdrawn, because any film with Sinatra is worth seeing, and in spite of its shortcomings it is still enjoyable