THE BOUNTY HUNTER 1954THE BOUNTY HUNTER is a western film made by Judy Garland's company, Transcona Productions, and Warner Brothers. The film stars, Randolph Scott, Delores Dorn, Marie Windsor, Ernest Borgnine, Howard Petrie, Harry Antrim and Robert Keys.Randolph Scott is a bounty hunter with a reputation for bringing in his wanted men dead. Scott is approached by an agent of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. He is offered a large reward to find a trio of holdup men. The men had made off with $100,000 in cash. The Pinkerton Agency has not been able to trace the men. They have an idea that the unknown men might be hiding in the mining town of Twin Forks.Scott hits the town under an alias and is soon asking pointed questions of the townsfolk. Of particular interest to Scott is the local doctor, Harry Antrim. Scott has reason to believe that one of the three hold up types had been wounded during the robbery. Antrim is not exactly forthcoming in the info department. His pretty daughter, Delores Dorn, lets slip that she recalls a bullet wound they treated.There are several red fish of the herring variety thrown at Scott and the audience. In the mix here is Ernest Borgnine as the hotel operator, Dub Taylor as the post office man and Marie Windsor as a saloon girl. Once it becomes known that Scott is a famous bounty hunter, the pot soon gets to a boiling. People start to leave town and one man makes an unsuccessful play for Scott.The pot is now overrunning and the unknown hold up crew start to lose their nerve. Needless to say that bodies start to pile up as the gang turns on each other. Scott follows the corpses till he arrives at the right bunch. There is a nice twist at the end when the gang members are revealed.The director here is Andre de Toth. This was one of six films Scott and de Toth made together. While all of them, like this one, are watchable dusters, they do not match the westerns series made between Scott and director Budd Boetticher.The odd camera angles etc present in this one are because the film was made in 3-d. It was however only released to cinemas in standard 2-d format. Director de Toth also filmed the popular 3-d horror film, HOUSE OF WAX. This is rather odd since de Toth only had one eye.Right at the end of the film, future star, Fess Parker, as well as silent star, Buddy Roosevelt, have small bits.

Randolph Scott occasionally plays a bad guy like in the "Spoilers" here he is not really a bad guy but is a hard case bounty hunter who only goes after high paying wanted types. He appears to only take them in dead so his rep is rather dark. The famous Pinkerton detective agency kind of hires him to run down three surviving train robbers that the Pinks can not find. Using his hard won savvy he manages to trace the three to a small, peaceful town. Well after he gets there it ain't so peaceful. Turns out the postmaster is one of the three and when Randolph gets him to run to the buried loot he follows him. While digging for the money one of the other two kill him and make off with the loot. RS returns to town as the stage comes in with a supposed picture of one of the the robbers.This leads to a face off with the sheriff who is one of the remaining two. As the sheriff is about to tell all he is killed by the third robber. Now this did surprise a bit, it turns out to be the widow of the shill gambler. So in the end RS stays, marries the murdered doctors daughter, and lives happily ever after(?).

TCM included this Randolph Scott film in it's recent night under the stars. This one is made for a 90 minute second banana under feature. For an under feature it has great color print and supporting cast includes Ernest Borgnine.In this movie the star of the later movie Marty has a pronounced limp as a part of his character. Scott puts in another impressive performance. The camera angles used by the director of this one are quite impressive too.The 1950's are rich in Westerns as even television was cranking them out in record numbers. Enjoyed this one myself.

It's funny, but today Randolph Scott is practically forgotten--even though his track record with film is unequaled. While John Wayne is strongly associated with westerns, he did not specialize in them like Scott and no one consistently produced great westerns like he did--especially since his heyday of about 1950-1960. And, while this is certainly not as good as the best of these, it's still a dandy film.Before I start talking about the plot, however, despite Scott making such good westerns, it's odd that in so many of them small technical details often...well...stink. Like too many of his films, there is a fight scene where the guy doing the fighting is OBVIOUSLY a stuntman. The only way it might have been easier to spot was if they'd used a black lady for these scenes! Also, at the very beginning, Scott has a shootout with some of the worst editing I've seen in years. Clearly, despite his making good films, often the budgets weren't all that great--and this is little more than a B-western in that regard. But, because he was such a great and seemingly effortless actor, you tend to look past these glitches.In this film, Scott plays a bounty hunter--which makes a lot of sense considering the title! However, when he's looking into a year-old robbery, people in a particular small town act amazingly unfriendly. Concensus seems to be that if there are any crooks in town, well, it's no one's business since they didn't hurt anyone in the town! And because they folks aren't especially civic-minded, Randy's got his hands full.The acting, as usual, is good and the action and script also quite good. Plus, there were a few surprises here and there--enough that it's not just another run of the mill genre picture.