I had to start this movie over twice because I realized I'd stopped paying attention, which should tell you something about the quality of storytelling here. Randolph Scott plays an undercover government agent investigating some Confederate sympathizers who want California to secede and become a rebel state. Routine western offers nothing original. It's not terrible, but it's so routine and bland that it hardly held my interest.

The Man Behind The Gun is a Randolph Scott western with Randy on a most serious mission. He's going undercover in southern California just before the Civil War to prevent a secessionist plot from taking California out of the union or at a very least splitting off southern California as a separate state for the southern Confederacy to be.Scott's only got two allies from his previous army service Alan Hale,Jr., and Dick Wesson whom he can rely on. The situation is such that he can't tell who's on what side, least of all the army commander in the Los Angeles area, Philip Carey.The film boasts a top notch cast of players that include Roy Roberts, Douglas Fowley, Anthony Caruso, Katharine Warren, Morris Ankrum, and as a young Joaquin Murietta, Robert Cabal. The two female leads are Patrice Wymore better known as the third Mrs. Errol Flynn and band singer Lina Romay who formally was with both the Xavier Cugar Orchestra and the Bing Crosby radio show at different times. Romay gets to sing a couple of sultry songs in Spanish. Also since this was a Warner Brothers film, Some Sunday Morning which was introduced in the Errol Flynn film San Antonio gets interpolated here.Telling you who the head of the secessionist group would spoil things, but I will say it's one very deadly individual.The Man Behind The Gun is a very good Randolph Scott western which would please his still devoted legion of fans.

Supposed killer and Army deserter Randolph Scott heads to Los Angeles sometime before the Civil War. Posing as a schoolteacher who can't shoot straight, he gets knee-deep in some intrigue involving a group of separatists, the assassination of a US senator, and their attempts to split California into free and slave states.Costumes and sets are lavish and there's lots of great old-California atmosphere. However, The Man Behind The Gun is disappointingly routine. It's really too bad, because this is really one handsome production!The actors are game and some of their characters are quite colorful. The filmmakers should have pumped a little more action and suspense into the script, or trimmed the final product to about an hour.

I'm a huge Randolph Scott fan, but this film is a dud. The whole thing has a canned, fake, soundstage feel to it, with truly awful rear-screen projection. It has a good plot idea that the screenwriter has successfully buried in a nitwit script, which makes it impossible for the audience to become immersed in the action and truly care about any of the characters. The directing is pedestrian, and only accentuates how bad the script is instead of helping to improve it. I've seen plenty of thoroughly enjoyable "soundstage productions" before, but this is not one of them. All it does is make you appreciate the gritty Scott/Boetticher films all the more.Randolph Scott is tanned, trim, and shines that million dollar smile throughout. He's always a pleasure...even in the worst of his films. Aside from Scott, the other main reason I wanted to see this movie was due to how much I enjoyed Ms. Wymore in Errol Flynn's movie, "Rocky Mountian". In "Man Behind the Gun", she is just as beautiful, and you can tell she's a good actress, but she was forced to say some pretty dumb lines, and the blocking she was given by the director was truly awful. I've only seen Phil Carey in "Operation Pacific", and he plays the exact same character here...an arrogant pain-in-the-butt you want to beat into unconsciousness. I guess it proves he's a good actor...he made me hate him. There are some lame attempts at comic relief that only detract from the film, in my opinion. Although there are many elements to knock, I must say that I found myself truly enjoying the two Spanish songs sung in the musical numbers...but that's not why we go to see Randolph Scott movies, right?There are definitely worse Scott films out there, and this one certainly isn't unbearable, but it also certainly couldn't be deemed anything beyond mediocre.