Kentucky Rifle (1955) (original) (raw)
Synopsis
His Wits, Weapons and Women, Turned Defeat Into Victory!
A man escorts a wagon load of Kentucky rifles through Indian territory and must find a way to get through without losing the rifles to the Indians. Unfortunately the Indians know about it, and give the occupants an ultimatum: either the rifles or their lives.
Cast
Popular reviews
I try with every film I watch to see the positives in them, regardless of how dubious the strength of those positives may seem? Kentucky Rifle from 1955 is one of those films that has very little going for it, despite having a few cast members with genuine Western credentials. Director Carl K. Hittleman only made 4 feature films, and although I have 1957's The Buckskin Lady still on my Watchlist, I don't know how much of a hurry I'm in to see it now? This film was shot in something called Pathe Color, and it is horrible to look at, almost as horrible as the script that Hittleman, Lee Hewitt, and Francis Chase Jnr wrote here.
Kentucky Rifle has…
There is something funny about who ended up in this movie 😅 Two voices almost everybody knows from old American movies end up stuck in the same cheap desert Western. Chill Wills was the voice of Francis the Talking Mule and Sterling Holloway would later be Winnie the Pooh. Here they both are in Kentucky Rifle giving folksy little speeches about how great a long rifle shoots. That is pretty much the movie. One of those bare bones Howco Westerns where the gun gets more love than most of the people holding it.
There is a decent little survival story here. A wagon breaks down in Comanche territory. The rest of the wagon train keeps moving and the people left…
A wagon full of Kentucky long-rifles breaks down in hostile Comanche territory. Some dumbasses stay to fix the broken axle, but mostly quarrel and get arrows shot at them. The two wagon-repair montages are more competently filmed than the action. The end.
Movies I’ve owned (but haven’t actually seen) for so long it’s embarrassing vol.2: #3/15
Directed and co-written by Carl K. Hittleman who also wrote the infamous BILLY THE KID VERSUS DRACULA, the film aims for a morality chamber piece (think THE OX BOW INCIDENT, but over the fate of rifles instead of a man), but doesn’t have the characterizations or combat sequences needed. Unlike STAGECOACH, the reason these disparate characters are stuck together doesn’t make much sense. So…
Carl K Hittleman’s western. While escorting a wagon of rifles, a cowboy must find a way to outsmart the Comache Indians who plan to steal them. Starring Chill Wills and Lance Fuller.
The story concerns a wagon containing Kentucky rifles which needs to pass through dangerous Indian territory. Unfortunately, the Indians find out about the plan, and they are ready.
Chill Wills and Lance Fuller both give okay performances in their respective parts as Tobias Taylor and Jason Clay, the two men who don’t show a great deal of determination in terms of what to do with themselves, which makes it frustrating for the viewer.
Elsewhere, Cathy Downs as Amy Connors, Sterling Holloway as Lon Setter, Henry Hull as Preacher…
Watching KENTUCKY RIFLE so soon after GHOST TOWN probably wasn't a good idea, since both films feature a band of travelers getting sidetracked by an Indian attack. The difference is, whereas GHOST TOWN at least set itself up for nuance and peppered in a few interesting ideas throughout (though rarely developed any of them), KENTUCKY RIFLE... just kind of is what you get, nothing more, nothing less. About the only thing I'll remember going forward is that Sterling Halloway, the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh and other classic Disney characters, is in it.
You could fall asleep during the opening scenes and wake up at the final shot, but still predict the movie entirely. The listless screenplay is dampened by an even duller dialogue. This script feels like it was developed by a dartboard full of every western cliche and a blindfold.
I had unexplainable flashbacks of the Cheshire cat and Winnie the Pooh, then I looked up the cast. Oh bother.
From looped background sound effects to redface "injuns", this is closer to sardonic parody than a true western.
I got this cable tv-channel only for classic movies. That’s it, nothing to say about this film except for it being boring as shit. Everything is boring. The worst part is how dated this is. It’s a film from 1955, but just feels like a movie that doesn’t seem to have any ambition at all. It’s just a totally regular western plot, characters and locations. There’s literally nothing interesting about it.
Hmmm. As B Westerns go, this has to be more of a C+ as Chill Wills really struggles to hold this together. He is "Taylor" who is in charge of repairing a busted wagon that's been left behind by the train - exposing it to a gang of marauding Comanches who want it's not-so-secret cargo of Winchesters. He's not helped by the fact that his colleagues are all a bit self-obsessed with each having their own agenda and who are all just a bit selfish. Can he get them all through safely without surrendering their lives and/or their weapons? I didn't really care, to be honest. The production is basic, the dialogue far too wordy and the characterisations, led by…
Film #75 of my 2023 - Clearing Out My DVD Case Initiative.
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Pretty standard old-school western. Not much dynamic about the story for sure. Just a wagon train trying to get some rifles through Comanche Territory... without much success along the way.
Western legend Chill Wills is fun to watch, as is the voice of Winnie the Pooh: Sterling Holloway.
Nothing too exciting in terms of shootouts and such. But not bad either. It'll scratch the itch for "watch an old western day"... if they have those.
With a premise like this it should have been interesting, right? No. This is fucking stupid and boring and generic. The characters make bad decisions. Most of the film is just talking and talking and not much moving forward. Honestly one of the worse Westerns that I have seen.
A chance for veteran character actor Chill Wills to shine in a lead role, and he does so with great charisma and ability. He could have done it more often than he did. x
Modest low-budget Western in which a wagon is separated from its train when it breaks an axle deep in Comanche country. The unusual cast – Chill Will leads, Jimmy Cagney’s sister provides support, Henry Hull plays a preacher, and the voice of Winnie the Pooh (Sheldon Leonard) provides what is presumably supposed to be comic relief – compensate for the bland but inoffensive material.