Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Strictly average movie

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Louis L'Amour wrote well-structured western stories that were very entertaining. Usually, there's a hero who never goes out of his way to hurt anyone. And the force(s) of villainy are clearly defined. But Hollywood wanted to pair Natalie Wood and Tab Hunter, so the love story in this film includes some amorous un-L'Amourous scenes to cater to young viewers.The first couple of scenes establish who our hero is (Tab Hunter as Trace Jordan) and how bad the villains are. Natalie plays Maria, a strong-willed young woman who is also victimized by the gang of gunslingers who enforce the evil dictates of one Joe Sutton (Ray Teal). After Trace attempts to bring the bad guys to justice, they chase him over the countryside. Maria tries to help him.Members of the gang include Claude Akins, who also appeared in "The Sea Chase" with Tab Hunter in 1955. One of the orneriest gang members is played by Earl Holliman. After this film, he would appear consecutively in "Giant", "The Rainmaker" and "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral". Talk about being in the right places at the right time.Unfortunately, certain scenes are marred by some very corny lines. The result is a great L'Amour story burdened by Hollywood "enhancements". You can judge for yourself if Natalie Wood's accent is horrible or not. She surely took a lot of criticism for Maria's accent in "West Side Story", which would follow in five years.

"The Burning Hills" marked director Stuart Heisler's final big-screen western after the well-made Clayton Moore & Jay Silverheels "Lone Ranger" in 1956. Heisler helmed other oaters, such as "Dallas" with Gary Cooper, and they had worked together before that on the parody horse opera "Along Came Jones." The Susan Hayworth oil field drama "Tulsa" qualified more as a western owing to its setting, and Heisler had handled some uncredited chores on an even earlier Cooper epic "The Cowboy and the Lady," but it too was more contemporary. Heisler spent the 1950s and 1960s calling the shots on a variety of cowboy television series such as "Lawman," "Tales of Wells Fargo," "Gunsmoke," "The Dakotas," "Rawhide," and "The Virginian." Indeed, the Los Angeles native, who earns his spurs as a film editor, knew the difference between a stirrup and a pommel so his westerns were as authentic as the times allowed. Future bestselling author Irving Wallace adapted the Louis L'Amour novel "The Burning Hills," and this straightforward outdoors opus reunited Heisler with Tab Hunter, who had starred in "Island of Desire," as well as Natalie Wood, who had appeared in the 1952 Bette Davis soaper "The Star." "The Burning Hills" opens ominously as three gunslingers stroll stealthily into a man's camp and shoot him the back. The fellow they kill is Johnny Jordan, and Johnny's younger brother is not around when the murder takes place. Trace Jordan (Tab Hunter of "Battle Cry") rides back to discover his brother dead. The Mexican ranch hand and he examine the scene of the homicide and ferret out clues. They know three dastards came after Johnny. Trace notices that one walks with a limp, another wears heavy Mexican spurs, and the last chain smokes cheroots. Trace rides into Esperanza to report his brother's murder, but he finds the sheriff's office empty and in shambles. Eventually, he rides to the Sutton Ranch where he confronts the patriarch, Joe Sutton (Ray Teal of "Ace in the Hole"), who refuses to help him. Trace vows to visit the nearby U.S. Army installation Fort Stockwell and bring back blue-uniformed horsemen. Joe pulls a revolver out of his desk drawer, and they exchange gunfire. Trace wounds Sutton in the chest and escapes. Sutton's foreman Ben Hindeman (Claude Akins of "Rio Bravo") wounds Trace with a lone rifle shot as our hero is galloping away on horseback. Initially, Sutton's men cannot find him. Trace's horse lugs him to an abandoned mine shaft with a water hole. Trace falls off his pony and rolls near the waterhole. He blocks the stream with his inert body that nourishes the sheep at a small Mexican ranch below. Maria Cristina Colton (Natalie Wood of "Rebel Without A Cause") tends Trace's wounds and then conceals him from Sutton's men. Sutton's hot-tempered son, Jack Sutton (Skip Homeier of "The Gunfighter") and his foreman Hindeman assemble a search party. They acquire an expert tracker, Jacob Lantz (Eduard Franz of "Hatari") who can follow a trail anywhere through anything. They question Maria, and she fires at Jack but misses him. Narrowly, Trace and Maria manage to escape from Sutton's squad of six-gunners in the mine. Fortunately, the mind caves in before the bad guys can pursue our hero and heroineMaria has no love lost for the villainous Suttons. After all, the Suttons murdered her father. As a result, she is more than happy to help Trace. Sutton's worthless, no-account, son murders his own foreman when they lose track of the hero. Jack shoots Ben in the back in cold blood and assumes command of the rabble. He knows that if Trace ever reaches the army fort that his father and he are cooked. She slows down Jack and company by spiking their coffee with Jemison weed. Maria manages to find Trace, but the villains recover and follow her. Mort (Earl Holliman) has been drinking moonshine when he spots Maria leaving her ranch. He finds Trace and they have a knockdown, drag-out fight. Our hero and heroine escape from the bad guys a second time.Actually, there isn't much to "The Burning Hills." Heisler stages the action with suitable flare, particularly in the opening scene where Trace's brother is gunned down without a chance to defend himself. He should have kept his holstered revolver closer to him. He shows very little of Johnny's three murderers. Essentially, this is a small potatoes shoot'em up. Ray Teal and Skip Homeier make ideal villains and Tab Hunter is a standard-issue hero with the beautiful Natalie Wood along as a fiery heroine. David Buttolph provides an atmospheric orchestra score to heighten the tension and suspense.

Louis L'Amour novels make good reading and fine western cinema and The Burning Hills is no exception. Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood who were a screen team and studio public relations created off screen romance star in this film which has Tab Hunter on the run and Natalie Wood helping him.Hunter's got plenty of reason to run, his brother was killed and he shoots Ray Teal who is the overlord of the local Ponderosa. The wounded Teal who really doesn't have title to a lot of the land he runs roughshod over and he sends his rotten son Skip Homeier and foreman Claude Akins with some of his riders after him. At no time are they a legally constituted posse and Homeier and Akins can't stand each other and have many issues between them.Skip Homeier ever since he shot Gregory Peck in the back in The Gunfighter made a good career of playing some really nasty punk villains and he's certainly at his nastiest here. Eduard Franz has a strange and interesting part also as a mixed race tracker that Akins insists on having in the posse. He's a person of interesting and shifting loyalties.Wood and Hunter were certainly an attractive pair and the teens and Tweens in the audience got some thrills as Hunter had to appear topless as Wood nursed him with his injuries. The Burning Hills has a lot of tension in it as the posse closes in and Hunter is a pretty resourceful man. Wood has a few tricks of her own to baffle the posse and not all of them involve sex.The Burning Hills is a nicely constructed western that I'm sure Louis L'Amour took some pride in the screen version of his work.

Soon after his brother has been shot to death, handsome Tab Hunter (as Trace Jordan) arrives in the western town of "Esperanza". Along with Mr. Hunter, we quickly learn the man responsible for murdering brother is young cigar-stomping Skip Homeier (as Jack Sutton). As it turns out, Mr. Homeier and his gang have run the sheriff out of town; they also shoot anyone who tries to stake a claim in the area. Hunter is advised to leave town immediately, but refuses. With his muscular frame and quick draw, Hunter easily infiltrates the Sutton ranch, to demand justice.Wounded in a shoot-out, Hunter barely escapes from the ranch. He collapses near the home of sexy sheepherder Natalie Wood (as Maria Colton). Taunted by the "Sutton Gang" due to her mixed heritage (English father, Mexican mother) and preference for dresses that accentuate her beautifully-shaped breasts, Ms. Wood hides Hunter from Homeier, and nurses him back to health. Hunter and Wood are mutually attracted to each other. Hunter hopes to report Homeier and his gang to the United States Cavalry at nearby Fort Stockwell. Will he get there? Warner Bros. must have known putting popular but unproven Hunter in this high-budgeted CinemaScope western would be a gamble - but, it pays off. He always fit the genre like a glove, and it's too bad a long string of Hunter westerns wasn't forthcoming. Hunter's greatest asset, herein, isn't really his handsomeness; rather, it's that he adds a muscular athleticism to the usual western antics. As you'll plainly see, there was no need to fear Hunter would snap a girdle, or slip a toupee. Trying on a Spanish accent, Wood is tightly outfitted, and highly arousing.Homeier turns in a wonderfully nasty supporting performance. Mixed-raced "Indian" tracker Eduard Franz (as Jacob Lantz), limping liquor-soaked Earl Holliman (as Mort Bayliss), and foreman Claude Akins (as Ben Hindeman) lead a strong supporting cast. With sexless romance and Spanish stereotypes, writer Louis L'Amour (book) and Irving Wallace (script) break no new ground, but you know how these western stories go. Director Stuart Heisler corrals the young stars well; he left feature films for dependable work on episodic western television.******** The Burning Hills (8/23/56) Stuart Heisler ~ Tab Hunter, Natalie Wood, Skip Homeier, Earl Holliman