Real western addicts acknowledge that Republic Studios, despite their cost-cutting measures, turned out the absolute best horse operas in history. This fine and little known movie is exceptional even by Republic standards. No subtle stuff here....just an unusually tight and suspenseful script, committed performances from seasoned western stars and, of course, plenty of the usual gunfight action.

Billy Graham proudly declared 'Mr.Texas' (1951),the maiden production of his company World Wide Films, "the first Christian Western". He probably didn't go to the movies much, otherwise he might have known about John Ford's '3 Godfathers' and 'WagonMaster', sandwiched between which came this rollicking candidate for cult status alongside 'Johnny Guitar'; although it's unlikely that the Reverend Graham would have approved of it bearing a title suggesting damnation rather than salvation.

Immaculately directed by R.G.Springsteen and atmospherically photographed by Jack Marta in Trucolor (like 'Johnny Guitar'),Dorrell & Stuart McGowan's tremendous script bears a passing resemblance to both 'Destry Rides Again' and to Ralph Nelson's 'Lilies of the Field' (1963),in which Sydney Poitier helped build a chapel for a group of nuns. Here the wonderfully laconic Wild Bill Elliott (billed as 'William') as former gambler Zeb Smith dedicates himself to honouring the dying wish of preacher H.B.Warner (who over twenty years earlier had played The Messiah himself in DeMille's 'The King of Kings') by raising the money to build a church in his memory.

Although from now on never without his Bible (which he calls 'The Rule Book'),unlike Destry Smith still relies upon his fists and his six-shooter to resolve tricky situations, on the grounds that it "Seems to be the only kind of sermon I can make folks listen to". The fun really starts with the entrance of the always awesome Marie Windsor as sloe-eyed female outlaw Doll Brown - "Fast on the draw and fast on the jaw" - who recoils from Smith's Bible like a vampire from a crucifix.

Without the film's religious content it's interesting to speculate on how some of the film's heady brew of sex and violence would otherwise have fared with the Breen Office - there's a torture sequence when Smith is strung up like Christ and a lit lamp held against his bared back; and it has a fascinatingly ambiguous ending probably dictated by just how far a criminal past was then permitted to go unpunished.

In Hellfire, Wild Bill Elliott in one of the few times in his career does something less than heroic. When we first meet him he's a no good tinhorn gambler who gets caught with some cards up his sleeve. Just as he's about to get some frontier justice an itinerant preacher H.B. Warner steps in front of a bullet meant for Elliott. As he's dying he makes Elliott promise to build the church he was collecting funds for. But he has to do it by the rules as laid down in the Good Book.

History is full of folks who do an about face in belief and character, the most well known is from the Bible with Paul struck down on the road to Damascus and turning from a Sanhedrin persecutor to a full fledged believer in Christianity. But Elliott's about face was really a bit much to swallow.

Even more so is his idea that he can get all the money he needs if lady outlaw Marie Windsor will turn to the Lord and turn herself in. This woman makes Sharon Stone in The Quick Gun and Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge in Johnny Guitar and Barbara Stanwyck in any number of westerns look like a Sunday schoolteacher is not about to do that. Windsor gives a great performance that is completely wasted in an unreal film.

Besides she's also got outlaw brothers Jim Davis, Paul Fix, and Lewis Faust after her. And sheriff Forrest Tucker whose agenda isn't all about law and order.

Hellfire is one of those films that Elliott hoped would break him out of the B picture cowboy ranks into something better. But instead of breakout, he got one weird film.