I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Miscegenation/ immorality is the theme of "Stagecoach to Fury" director William F. Claxton's dusty, little, black & white western "The Quiet Gun." This thoroughly conventional oater turns over rocks that most westerns during the 1950s might not have done. Immoral sex sets the plot of this concise oater into motion. Had Claxton and "Cattle Empire" scenarist Eric Norden left out the sex angle, "The Quiet Gun" would have been little more than a standard-issue B-western about land raiders. A well-dressed saloon entrepreneur, John Reilly (Tom Brown) wants the land belonging to a local rancher, Ralph Carpenter (Jim Davis of "Big Jake"), and he conspires with a reptilian gunslinger, Doug Sadler (Lee Van Cleef of "High Noon") to steal Carpenter's land. The city attorney, Steven Hardy (Lewis Martin), is from the east. He is properly outraged by the fact that Carpenter is a married man who is living in sin with a half-breed Indian maiden, Irene (Mara Corday of "The Gauntlet"), while his wife Teresa Carpenter (Kathleen Crowley of "The Phantom Stagecoach") was away. The impetuous Hardy rides out to Carpenter's ranch to arrest him. Things do not go well for the crusading lawyer. Carpenter kills Hardy when the latter appropriates a rifle. The rifle belonged to livery stable hand Samson (Hank Worden of "The Searchers") who had ridden out with the attorney to Carpenter's ranch. Sheriff Carl Brandon (Forrest Tucker of "Chism") knows Carpenter and tries to take him into custody. He sneaks up on him when Carpenter and Irene are bedded down in the middle of nowhere, but Irene distracts the lawman long enough for Carpenter to escape. By the time that Brandon corners him in the rocks, the town has sent a gang of horsemen out to lynch Carpenter. When Brandon tries to disarm them, they overpower him and knock him unconscious. When he recovers from the beating, the sheriff sees poor Ray dangling inertly from a tree branch. Brandon rides back to town and arrests all the men who participated in hanging Ray Carpenter. The city father intercedes on behalf of the prisoners, but Brandon tricks them into becoming his deputies. He does this was keep them from forcing him to release the lynch mob. Meanwhile, Ray's wife Teresa returns on the stagecoach and learns the awful truth. The judge sentences the lynch mob to three years apiece for their lawlessness. Later, after the trial, Brandon learns from Teresa who went out to her late husband's ranch that Irene has been killed. Brandon charges both Reilly and Sadler for her death. A gunfight on the main street occurs, and Brandon is wounded. Reilly and Sadler are not as lucky; Brandon guns both of them down. The only thing missing from this otherwise impressive little western is the closure of an ending. We see Teresa come out and check on Brandon's welfare. It is really too bad that Claxton and Norden didn't show us what happened after the shoot-out. Naturally, it would seem likely that Brandon and Teresa would be drawn to each other. After dealing with the treacherous town fathers, wouldn't it seem obvious that Brandon might have tossed his badge in the dirt like Gary Cooper did and ride out with Teresa to get her late husband's ranch going? Again, if this otherwise compelling oater suffers from anything it is the lack of an effective ending that would have provided answers for some questions.Altogether, "The Quiet Gun" (not sure what this enigmatic title refers to) is a diamond in the rough. The black & white photography is stark and the compositions are interesting. I liked it those little realistic touches, such as when Forrest Tucker dismounted from his horse, he loosened the cinch holding the saddle on his horse. Later, when he came back to ride out, he tightened the cinch. In the courtroom scene, you can see one window opened because you know it would be hot in that room.

The eminent, mad Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote of UFOs that there was something out there, but what it was, was a mystery. As such they permitted us to project our own thoughts and emotions onto them. They provided us with a kind of Rorschach ink blot test. We could interpret them according to our social values.Many routine Westerns provided us with the same opportunities. The Westerns generally stuck with the conventions -- a clip on the jaw and the recipient is unconscious for as long as the plot requires. But within that framework we could explore our problems in model form. It's like playing around with a toy instead of facing the real thing.For instance, it might not be such a hot idea to deal directly with racism. Why bleed the box office returns from the traditional South? But, hey, Indians can serve as stand-ins for African-Americans, as in "The Searchers" (1956). Movies designed for audiences with the Great Depression fresh in mind could use "big business" as the heavy. We could even win the Vietnam war with Rambo. This movie, "The Quiet Gun" (a generic title if there ever was one) explores social issues common to the late 1950s -- divorce, adultery, prudery, racism, lynching, conformity, gossip, and the impartiality of the justice system. No African-Americans, though, just a "half-breed" Indian.It's not a bad little film, though it does seem almost flamboyantly dated now. (Living in sin?) Forrest Tucker is a professional and competent actor and it shows. Lee Van Cleef, of the ophidian eyes, is what he is. Jim Davis plays a somewhat sympathetic victim for a change. Some of the minor parts are just terrible. What were the town fathers in real life -- the producers' uncles or something? It's inexpensively shot on a ranch set. No spectacular vistas here. And it's in black and white, which isn't necessarily bad. If the script lacks sparkle, and if Hank Worden replays his goofy dumb role yet again, the movie still is watchable and has something to offer us, as if it had been recently exhumed from a time capsule.Not at all terrible.

Forrest Tucker gives an interesting understated, "quiet" performance, Lee Van Cleef chews up the scenery, and the (usually unwelcome) comic relief works (surprisingly) well. Also, decent plot twists and neat little affectations - like Forrest Tucker always rolling cigarettes and his tobacco pouch hanging out of his jacket pocket. Highly recommended for lovers of: adult westerns B-Westerns 50s Westerns

Twentieth Century Fox created a subsidiary in the mid 1950s to release films it deemed not good to enough to release under its banner. Regal Pictures, like Fox, released most of its films in wide screen, using "Regalscope," which appears technically indistinguishable from Cinemascope. Ironically, most of Regal's output was as good or better than the B movies from Fox. "The Quiet Gun" is no exception, with fine performances from Forrest Tucker and Jim Davis and some surprising plot twists which lift this movie from the humdrum. Tucker plays a sheriff who must reluctantly pursue his friend (Davis), after Davis kills a busybody "district attorney" in self defense. Mara Corday and Kathleen Crowley provide the eye candy and Hand Worden plays the comic relief in a role similar to that of Walter Brennan in "Rio Bravo".ENCORE's WESTERN CHANNEL shows the movie in full screen, which is a shame. Several effective scenes are undercut by the aspect ratio conversion. Still, "The Quiet Gun" is worth watching, if only to see Lee Van Cleef with a full set of hair. I rate it a "6".