Robert Mitchum is excellent in this film...so much so you wish he'd made more westerns. However, it's not among his most famous films because of the poor writing. Apart from Mitchum's character, most of the rest of the folks in the movie simply make little sense.

When the story begins, a town is being controlled by a guy intent on having his own way. He has a gang of gunmen and uses intimidation and a very weak sheriff to make the townsfolk tow the line. However, when a so-called 'town tamer' (Mitchum) comes to this crappy town, he offers to rid the town of lawlessness...provided they leave it entirely to him and don't question his methods. Surprisingly, this did NOT mean the guy running roughshod over the people's rights. Instead, he acted very deliberately to strategically rid the town of the menace.

What annoyed me so much about the film were the other characters. The town fathers almost constantly questioned the town tamer's methods and almost immediately started trying to undermine him. Why? I have no idea. And, there's one guy in town who has guts...then why does he have to ALWAYS run around half-cocked and creating trouble for himself?! And, why is there a hooker with a heart of gold (a bad cliché, I know) who loves the town tamer yet inexplicably does everything she can to drive him away from her. None of it makes sense and it's a darn shame since Mitchum is great in this one.

By the way, keep a close eye on the 'ladies of ill repute' in the film. One of them is Angie Dickenson in a pre-star role and you have to look carefully to see her.

In Man With the Gun Robert Mitchum plays Clint Tollinger, a man who hires his gun out to clean out lawless towns in the west of which there seems to be a never ending supply. But he comes to this particular town in search of his estranged wife, Jan Sterling who since she left him has taken up the occupation as Madam of the local bordello. Of course the girls which include Barbara Lawrence and the still unknown Angie Dickinson are still called dance hall girls, but the Code was slowly cracking.

It's by chance he gets drawn into the town politics involving a big cattle baron who runs roughshod over every thing and every one in the general vicinity. The town council hires him to clean out the place of gunmen and sheriff Henry Hull makes it official by making him his deputy and giving him a free hand as per Mitchum's terms. The results ain't pretty.

Mitchum's a grim, bitter man heading the cast of a grim and bitter western. Part of his bitterness is the estrangement between him and Sterling. There's quite a history behind it as the movie shows.

Man With a Gun is a good western, but I have to say I was let down by the climatic gunfight at the end. It takes place on a deserted town street while most of the cast is at a town council meeting. James Westerfield plays a part similar to J. Edward Bromberg's role in Jesse James. He sets up a nasty ambush for Mitchum. But I think the plan fell flat in the writing. If Mitchum didn't suspect he was being set up before he did with gunman Leo Gordon following him, he was not the smart guy we'd been led to believe.

Of course if you want to see what I'm talking about then by all means see Man With a Gun.

It's the town of Sheridan City. The movie opens with bad cowboy Ed Pinchot shooting a boy's dog for no good reason. Clint Tollinger (Robert Mitchum) rides into town looking for his estranged wife Nelly Bain. She runs her saloon girls and refuses to see him. He keeps asking about Beth. The town is under threat from powerful rancher Dade Holman. The sheriff is weak. The town's men hire Tollinger who is a notorious town-tamer.

It's interesting to see a hero turn into the murky middle. Mitchum has played all sides. The movie does miss a good foil for him. This is a mano-a-mano story. Dade Holman is not on-screen enough to be the foil. Pinchot is too small as a character. It needs a bigger opponent for this to achieve real greatness.