One of the best films i have seen

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

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

The movie contains gun-play , Western noisy action , thrills , exciting spectacle and hard-biting interpretations . Offbeat Western about an almost-blind marshal with recurring bouts of blindness and taking on a nasty bandit . The rowdy ,free-spending cowboys attracted saloon keepers , gamblers , brothels and all types of frontier riff-raff , the town became notorious for its lawlessness , but there was Marshal Cass Silver (Robert Ryan) . After arrival the railway in town , Marshal Cass has to face off villains , killers and other mean people . Meanwhile , a cowboy called Thad Anderson (Jeffrey Hunter) comes to town with a cattle drive and meets Sheriff Silver , who murdered Anderson's dad when he was young . But his revengeful feelings of animosity soon change when Cass is telling the truth about his daddy . Later on , there appears his old nemesis , a corrupt gambler named John Barrett (Robert Middleton) and Cass has to deal with his hoodlums (Rodolfo Acosta , Ken Clark) . But here is a problem however , Cass is blind and he gets to hitting the dust .The film packs violence , shootouts , high body-count , it's fast moving and quite entertaining . It's a medium budget film with good actors , technicians , production values and pleasing results . A good Western of the kind that was already close in the then changing climate of Hollywood , what follows result to be Westerns in which stand out the twilight style , typical of the sixties . There is plenty of action in the movie , guaranteeing some shoot'em up or stunts every few minutes ; it continues to thicken to the inevitable final showdown . As the movie displays shot'em up , frantic action , thrills and moving pieces . It's a stirring Western with breathtaking confrontation between two leading roles , Robert Ryan/Jeffrey Hunter , and their enemies , Robert Middleton , Ken Clark , Rodolfo Acosta . Robert Ryan interprets efficiently an aging marshal responsible for law and order in a frontier cattle town , Jeffrey Hunter is cool as his young colleague and Robert Middleton is nice as a ruthless saloonkeeper . Virginia Mayo more used to work in Warner Brothers Musical seems miscast as the girlfriend . Support cast is pretty good such as Ken Clark , Rodolfo Acosta as hired guns . Special mention for the latter , Rodolfo Acosta , in his ordinary role as a cruelly baddie , he is terrific, and bears a hysterical and mocking aspect , subsequently he would play similar characters . Furthermore , Arthur O'Connell , Edward Platt , Whit Bissell , Richard Deacon , Jackie Coogan and a wasted Walter Brennan as an old deputy . Enjoyable score , including a catching whistled theme tune that may stay with you for some while . Colorful as well as evocative cinematography by Lucien Ballard , Peckinpah's usual .Screenplay by Petrarca and prestigious Edmund H North with interesting premise about a 'blind gunfighter' , subsequently taken by Japanese series starred by ¨Zaitochi¨, a blind swordsman from the 60s and being recently remade by Takeshi Kitano . This attractive theme about a blind gunslinger is also treated in other Westerns such as ¨The Blindman¨ by Ferdinando Baldi with Tony Anthony and Ringo Starr , ¨An eye for eye¨ by Michael Moore with Robert Lansing , ¨Minessota Clay¨ with Cameron Mitchell , directed by Sergio Corbucci and ¨Blind Justice¨ (1994) by Richard Spence with Armand Assante , Robert Davi and Elizabeth Shue .¨The proud ones¨ was expertly staged by Robert D. Webb who carried out an exciting climax of the picture . Robert Webb makes a nice camera work with clever choreography on the showdown , fighting , moving shootouts and suspenseful set pieces . Robert D Webb was the last person to win the short lived Oscar category "Best Assistant Director" . Often worked as assistant to the director Henry King . Directed Elvis Presley in his first feature film , Love Me Tender (1956) . Robert was an assistant director and director, known for Beneath the 12-mile reef , (1953), Seven Cities of Gold (1955) , Love Me Tender (1956) , this The proud ones (1956) , Pirates of Tortuga (1961) and The Cape Town affair (1967) . ¨The proud ones¨ is an outlandish , surprising and uneven story but will appeal to Western aficionados . Rating : 6.5/10 , riotous Western in which there's too much action and violence and excitement enough

This is a good Western, well worth watching. It has a good cast and some unique plot elements.Here are some of its good points:Robert Ryan is solid as usual. This is one of his better roles. Nice supporting cast. Interesting role by Walter Brennan. He was well prepared for his part as "Stumpy" in Rio Bravo a few years after this.Interesting portrayal of a cattle trail "boomtown". I can't recall seeing this done better, especially the economic aspects.Interesting twist on the "honest Sheriff", with the blurred vision. About time somebody got a concussion after being knocked on the head with the butt of pistol.Very different to see the "good guys" shooting men in the back, assuming they are about to turn with a hidden firearm in hand.Jeffrey Hunter's character is quite good, overcoming the resentment about his father's death. Kind of shocking when Ryan tells him bluntly that his father was a no good gun slinging bum.I love Civil War tie-ins and there is a very brief one, when Walter Brennan says the town hasn't been this busy since the boys came home from the war.Prominent Mexican character, which I also like, although he was a stereotype bandido.Here is what kept it from being better:Hot female lead Virginia Mayo is wasted as a typical Western female love interest, with nothing to do but warn her man to be careful.No locations. The whole thing was filmed in Burbank.Like I said, some interesting twists and color added to the basic "High Noon" plot, but not enough star power to make it stand out like a "Rio Bravo".

A cattle drive from Texas arrives at its destination in a town in Kansas. This sets off a wave of price gouging to take as much advantage as possible of the new business. Virginia Mayo runs a restaurant and Robert Middleton is set to open a new saloon. Marshall Robert Ryan comes face to face with the past in both Middleton and the cowboy son of a gunslinger (Jeffrey Hunter) who believes that Ryan gunned down his father in cold blood in the previous town he was a marshal in. The film is pretty good at showing the avariciousness of the merchants, who are willing to let law and order slide in order to profit from the business. Do they want law and order or wild and uncivilized profiteering led by the crooked Middleton and his gunslingers? It's a good question and the film could have been a whole lot better with a script that made more sense, especially for the beautiful Mayo, who's character is trapped in a stereotype.

I was surprised at how strong this film played out for one I'd never heard of before. I guess that puts me with the majority of reviewers on this board in support of "The Proud Ones". What puts the film at odds with a lot of early Westerns is the apparent age of it's star, Robert Ryan, who looks even older than his actual age of forty seven at the time of the picture's release. It isn't unusual to find Western films where the hero feels past his prime at thirty five, as in Gregory Peck's "The Gunfighter", one of my all time favorites by the way. After watching this one, I like to compare and contrast Ryan's forceful performance with the one he did in 1971's "Lawman", where he portrayed a town sheriff who knew the difference between right and wrong, but was willing to compromise in favor of the local town boss. He didn't have the lead in that picture, but he had some memorable scenes with it's star, Burt Lancaster.Here, Ryan carries the picture all the way, with help from young Jeffrey Hunter's Thad Anderson, who see saws his way through the picture attempting to establish credibility regarding Marshal Cass Silver's (Ryan) role in the death of his father. Silver never sugar coats it for Thad, he shot the elder Anderson in a 'him or me' situation, and had no problem alluding to his victim as scum, one of the hired hands of 'Honest' John Barrett (Robert Middleton), villain of the piece. Thad hires on as a jailer, then as a deputy to help the marshal clean up Flat Rock before the final curtain comes down.For fans of Westerns, there's no escaping the similarities to 1952's "High Noon", though without the tension of a pre-determined showdown. Cass Silver is about ready to hang up his badge, while his main squeeze Sally (Virginia Mayo) tries desperately to convince her man that it's time to leave town and start a new life elsewhere. The main theme holding the story together is the lawman's need to see the present job through, even if it means an uncertain, possibly fatal end. It's what gives the film's title it's meaning, and what drives the honorable man to an honorable conclusion.Aside from the story, I was intrigued by a number of elements the picture had to offer, like it's apparent fixation on gunshot wounds to the head. Badman Pike (Ken Clark) got it in the head during the stable shootout, as well as jailer Jake. Which is even more unusual, considering that Walter Brennan by this time should have earned the right not to go out in such a bloody manner. Even Ryan's character took an early graze to the temple, which set up his problem with blurred vision and possible blindness. That's something I've seen only one other time, in the 1965 spaghetti Western "Minnesota Clay", where Cameron Mitchell's character begins to rely on the direction of sound when he starts to lose his sight.One other thing, how unusual is it to see Jeffrey Hunter limping around from a leg wound instead of Walter Brennan? It's something you notice right away, if you can get beyond Brennan's oversize handlebar mustache - you think that was real?