Robert Taylor plays a cynical lawman in director Michael Curtiz's offbeat but interesting western "The Hangman" who has a habit of getting his man and bringing him to face justice. Taylor doesn't look like the usual U.S. Deputy Marshal this time around. He dresses business-like in a jacket with his six-gun holstered on his pants' belt well out of sight so he looks like he isn't packing a revolver. Believe it or not, this gruff character in dark apparel starts out as one kind of hombre and ends up as a different one by fadeout. This 1959 black & white western reminded me a little of the Charles Bronson bounty hunter western "Showdown at Boot Hill." Bronson gunned down his quarry, but nobody wanted to pay him off for his work. Similarly, after he delivers one outlaw to be hanged to his immediate superior, Marshal Clum Cummings (soon to be "Bonanza" star Lorne Greene), our hero, Marshal Mackenzie Bovard sets out to track down the last renegade named Jim Butterfield. The only problem that confronts Bovard is that nobody knows what Butterfield looks like except the man who is destined to swing in a week's time for the murder of another deputy. Bovard knows that Butterfield served in the calvary so he rides out to the nearest fort where the outlaw served. Unfortunately, the only man who can identify Butterfield is an orderly (Regis Toomey) but the fort commandant cannot release him to ride with Bovard for at least a month. The orderly recommends that Bovard look up a woman, Selah Jennison (Tina Louise of "The Good Guys and the Bad Guys") because she can recognize him. Bovard offers her $500 in gold if she will follow him to a nearby town and identify Butterfield. Bovard sets out on a stage to that town where he meets up with the town lawman, Sheriff Buck Weston (Fess Parker of "Davy Crockett") and asks around about Butterfield. The most obvious candidate is a well-liked teamster who works for a freighting firm, but he Jim Butterfield (Jack Lord of "Hawaii 5-o") has changed his name to Jim Bishop and nobody knows about his notorious past. Initially, Selah doesn't show up when she is supposed to and Bovard begins to have doubts about his cynical outlook on people. He assures Sheriff Weston that everybody has a price. Meantime, Curtiz and scenarist Dudley Nichols of "Stagecoach" fame struggle to work in some uneven humor. During the stage ride, a mature woman older than Bovard, Amy Hopkins (Mabel Albertson of "The Cobweb") struggles to attract Bovard's attention, but he ignores her. Just as Bovard is about to give up hope that Selah will show up, Selah shows up and Amy is surprised and affronted by her presence. Selah doesn't want to identify Butterfield and sneaks off to warn him. Not even Bovard can convince one of Butterfield's enemies at the teamster firm to testify against him. A harmless Mexican Pedro Alonso (Jose Gonzales-Gonzales of "Rio Bravo") who works alongside Butterfield tries to kill Bovard twice but fails to succeed each time. Eventually, even Bovard relents, turns in his badge, and decides to head for California to live the life that he has always dreamed up. Surprisingly, Selah turns down Sheriff Weston's offer of marriage and accompanies Bovard to California. This is not a terrain western with horsemen charging back and forth across the landscape. Most of the action occurs in a western town. Ironically, Bovard brandishes his revolver, but he doesn't kill anybody. Similarly, director Michael Curtiz doesn't display his usual flair in this Paramount Pictures release.

The Hangman finds Robert Taylor as a relentless U.S. Marshal who pursues criminals with the zeal of Lieutenant Gerard when he was hunting for Richard Kimble in The Fugitive. Barry Morse's words from that show could equally have served as Taylor's bywords, "I don't philosophize, I hunt."Who he's hunting is the last man of a four man gang accused of a holdup where a death occurred. Two guys are already dead and one is sentenced to hang. But nobody knows who number four is or what he looks like.Taylor in his quest goes to an army post where he finds recent widow Tina Louise and he's authorized by Wells Fargo to offer a reward of $500.00 if she'll come to a town where he's reputed to be and point him out. When he arrives in town, the object of his quest who turns out to be Jack Lord is about the most popular fellow there. Why he didn't run for mayor or even for Fess Parker's job as sheriff is beyond me. But Taylor gets no help from anybody.The title derives from the nickname Taylor has acquired for his dogged dedication to duty. The Hangman is a western with very little action surprisingly, but it has a good character study by the mature Robert Taylor. It's a well rounded portrait of a man who'd like to leave the job he's in, but has grown used to it and it's the only living he's known for years.The Hangman was the first film Robert Taylor did outside MGM since Magnificent Obsession in the Thirties. He has a record, definitely unlikely to be broken now of the longest running studio contract in film history. The Hangman is a good, not great western besides those already mentioned I did enjoy Mabel Albertson's performance as a dotty old biddy who's eying Robert Taylor like a slab of romantic beef. Well he was one of the biggest screen heartthrobs ever. Personally, I think Taylor should have concentrated on westerns in his later years the same way Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott did. He liked making them and though he's not primarily known as a western star, films like Devil's Doorway, Saddle the Wind, The Last Hunt and The Law and Jake Wade hold up very well today. The Hangman's not as good as these I've mentioned, but it still has a fine performance from Robert Taylor and the rest of the cast.

I like this movie for a number of reasons. The first being it is a Robert Taylor western, which you can always count on to be a good movie.Taylor plays MacKenzie Bovard a feared marshall nicknamed the Hangman because he catches the bad guys and then "the law hangs them". He is after the last of a hold up gang, and this he says is his last job. He has missed out on life and wants to move to California to start again. He persuades Selah Jennison (Tina Louise) to come to town to identify Johnny Butterfield (Jack Lord). She is miserable and alone and eventually goes to town for the money. Bovard is disappointed that she arrives because when she did not show up immediately, he felt he had finally found someone who could not be bought. He treats her badly, but still feels something there. She is much younger in years but is loyal to Butterfield. When she goes to Johnny to warn him, Bovard follows her and a friend of Johnny's ambushes him, shooting him. Selah goes back to her room and is confronted by an angry Bovard, wounded and unhappy that he could have ever thought she was something different. She tries to make him believe that she is concerned only for him, but he rejects her. The next morning she awakes to find Bovard in her bed, and handcuffed to him. He tracks down Johnny with Selah still handcuffed to him, a good comic twist to a serious story. In the end Bovard shoots above Johnny's head and lets him escape. The sheriff, Fess Parker is in love with Selah and has asked her to marry him, but she rejects the proposal and goes to California with Bovard to start a new life. Taylor is great as the cynical lawman, who in the end finds that a young woman knows more of loyalty and love than he could have ever imagined. Tina Louise is good as the girl, and has some good scenes with Taylor, quite touching one minute and argumentative the next. Good western, and the first independent film Taylor made outside the MGM studio system.

The struggle between duty and compassion is the subject of this 1959 Western. Robert Taylor plays marshal Kinzie Beauvard who is known as the Hangman for his ability to arrest murderers. "I don't hang them", he says. "The judge does that."The marshal enlists the help of a witness named Celia(played by Tina Louise) to arrest hold up suspect Johnny Bishop (played by Jack Lord). The marshal is embittered after 20 years of apprehending "rats". "Everyone has a price", he says. He begins to mellow as his reluctant witness makes him wait and later tries to confuse him. She knows the suspect but warns him that Beauvard is in town to arrest him. The suspect actually participated in the hold up, but he was an unwitting dupe. "I was a fool", he tells Celia. "I should have asked more questions" (before taking fresh horses to a rendezvous point for the real hold up men). As the movie progresses Beauvard becomes increasingly certain that Johnny Bishop is his man, but everyone in town rallies behind the suspect. He finally finds someone else who can identify Bishop as the man he wants. Big Murph (played by Gene Evans) agrees to finger him for a share of the reward but double crosses Beauvard and tries to help Bishop escape instead. "Why does everyone in town try to help him?", Beauvard asks the town marshal (played by Fess Parker). "Because Johnny has done so much for them", the town marshal replies. Ultimately, Beauvard gets his man but lets him escape at the end. "You see", the town marshal says, "Johnny did something for you, too". "No, Celia did it", Beauvard replies. He and Celia board the stagecoach for a new life in California.On a technical level this black and white film offers little. It is not your typical Western. Outdoor sequences are few and there is little of the beautiful scenery we have come to expect from this genre. There is little action, but the good script and performances more than make up for it. There is a good blend of humor and serious dialogue. There is more than the usual depth to Marshal Beauvard's character. Beauvard is cynical and tough. He wanted to become a lawyer, he says, "but there was always one more rat to catch". This movie is about conscience. The struggle between duty and humanity is well told.I have watched this minor Western many times and have enjoyed it each time.