Audie Murphy Over John Wayne Any Day. Real Life War Hero Audie Murphy was an Admired Man who was Brave, Courageous, and True. He Admitted that Acting was a Battle He Never Won. With a Likable Screen Persona He Soldered through a Career including many a Western. This was One of His Best.A Solid Cast of B-Movie Actors, Striking Color Cinematography, more Violent than usual for the Time, some Truly Good vs Evil Characters, and Philosophical Musing make this an Above Average Entry in the Wagonload of Westerns in the Time Period (1950-Early 1960's).It's a Grueling Task for the Make-Shift Posse on the Trail of some Hideous Bad-Guys lead by Vic Morrow and Lee Van Cleef. Audie and John Saxon reach Deep for some Soul Searching and the Ever Elusive, Nasty and Clever Outlaws show some Serious Signs of the Change about to Occur in Hollywood.A Must See for Western Fans, especially Audie Murphy Cultists. The Story is well told and as Entertaining as All Get Out as these things go. This is one that the Most Decorated Military Hero in History can be Proud.

Posse From Hell is my second favorite Audie Murphy western, his best being No Name On The Bullet. It's Audie who is leading the men who make up the Posse From Hell, he's a deputy tracking down the killer of the marshal and another citizen from his town of Paradise.Four prize specimens scheduled to hang escape from territorial prison and come upon the town and terrorize it, taking with them as hostage and sex toy Zohra Lampert. The leader of the four is Vic Morrow who packs a deadly shotgun. Morrow is absolutely riveting in his evil, this may very well be his career role.In fact Posse From Hell has many good supporting parts, Robert Keith plays a vain Civil War soldier looking to recapture some of his former prestige or acquire some he never had. John Saxon also stands out as a bank clerk who's from the east who joins the posse to see if he has the right stuff. Rudolfo Acosta who usually plays bad guys plays an Indian who joins the posse as a tracker and takes a lot of guff from the more self righteous whites. Seeing how deadly Morrow is with a shotgun this is an image that will disturb you and stay with you a long time. A nice cast of familiar players help Audie Murphy make this one of his best westerns. An absolute must for his fans.

Most Audie Murphy Westerns are OK, with a basic plot and very average cast, but PFH is better than average. There were lots of familiar faces in the cast, even though I couldn't put names to all of them without checking. Two were slightly out of character: Ray Teal as a banker and John Saxon as a tenderfoot. Lee van Cleef in an early role didn't have much to do before expiring, but his villainous persona was evident.I was impressed with the way that gunshots propelled their victims backward, in contrast to the dignified collapse so often seen in Westerns,but PFH maintained the other irritating tradition of men -in this case the posse - riding off for what was obviously a very long ride with no apparent provisions.I've always had this slight problem with Audie in that he doesn't actually look a tough guy (yes, I do know about his fantastic war record)and Randolph Scott or Burt Lancaster would have been more authentic, judging from some of their hatchet-faced portrayals of unforgiving avengers.The only really weak point was the twee and unconvincing romantic ending.

The producer spent enough money on this film for it to have been a real tribute to Murphy and some new talent that came along with him. In spite of liberal financing, the chemistry of the picture is as a gourmet meal spoiling & decomposing over some hot days of being left out on the table -- and yet not as if this film had gone stale from protracted timing or over-working. Simply put: the production money had been spent in the wrong places; although technically, there was no lacking of potential, and a number of scenes are actually very good -- only to be spoilt in brand "x" followups & careless errors. The screenwriting editors seem greatly to be blamed. The cinematography was "competent" TV-style dead-panning, with little imagination. It seemed to have been deliberately sabotaged by corny, even shoddy, lapses in set, dialogue, and cinematography -- all set to lavishly overdone Gershwin music. It is as if somebody tried to make an upside-down parody of 'Schindler's List' into a Western -- and succeeded in canning all of the "vitality" of the picture. This film is as if all of the life had been taken out of 'Hud' and lot's of action / colour had been forced-in instead. This film is a cinematographical nightmare that one has in the early morning hours before awaking, after eating too much of a rich dinner. Audie should have known better than to have made this film the way it was; he ought to have produced it himself and done it right. In sum, 'POSSE...' is one of the examples of fine Westerns ceasing to be made. At best, it paved the way for the "spaghetti" phenomena that ushered in the Clint Eastwood era...and the last death throws of the Westerns' golden age [...1927-1961...]. One can only ask, 'Why?'