good film but with many flaws

Expected more

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Glenn Ford was very busy as an actor in 1958- 6 films including Torpedo Run and this movie. Because of his being busy, this movie though well cast is kind of an assembly line production. There are some accidents in this film that make people think it is supposed to be a comedy.The biggest one is the cast. Leslie Nielsen, Edgar Buchanan, and Slim Pickens all became know for comedy later in their careers. Just because they are in this cast does not mean it is a comedy. Just because this is sheep versus cattle doe not make it a serious film either.What we have is something in-between. Ford plays his role straight and yet at times is funny himself. Shirley MacLaine's role here as Fords girl Dell is not fully exploited here. I think that explains the whole movie. A good looking talented cast and an uneven script. Writer James Edward Grant would write a better western comedy with McLintock later featuring the Duke, Chill Wills and Buchanan amongst others but in this movie he is still working on how to shape a western comedy.This film is a pleasant diversion for those who like the cast. I believe it was intended to be more serious than it is but with everyone being so busy cranking out other films, and a lot of old western actors, the film is just a pleasure to watch and wonder if they really had tried to make a comedy here, how it would have turned out?

This is one of the 1950's best westerns in the Destry Rides Again mode of tongue-in-cheek westerns and foreshadows Support Your Local Sheriff by a decade. It's ideally cast and is certainly one of Glenn Ford's finest roles. He and Shirley MacLaine have marvelous chemistry. Familiar faces Edgar Buchanan, Mickey Shaughnessy,Willis Bouchey,Percy Helton,and Slim Pickins are around to give it the proper old western flavor and Leslie Nielsen is slickly handsome as Ford's rival for Shirley's affections. Pernell Roberts is an effectively slimy villain. Director George Marshall was an old hand at combining comedy with action and The Sheepman is one of his best efforts. The screenplay by James Edward Grant and William Bowers was nominated for an Academy Award.The Sheepman still holds up well today and will appeal to anyone who is a fan of western's,comedies,or just plain entertaining movies. It's good, clean, old fashioned fun and a prime example of one of those kind of films"that they just don't make anymore!" More's the pity

The title of this film is misleading, a sheepman makes you think of a shepherd and a light comedy, and even though it is partly a comedy, it has its share of violence and drama. George Marshall was an expert at this combination of styles he directed "Destry Rides Again" (1939), "Texas" (1941), "Destry" (1954). What "The Sheepman" does not lack is great actors: Glenn Ford, Shirley MacLaine, Edgar Buchanan, Mickey Shaughnessy and Leslie Nilsen. Nilsen plays a charismatic "bad man", he seems so nice and friendly, and all of a sudden turns into a rattlesnake. Edgar Buchanan is Milt Masters, a likable guy with no morals and that has no qualms about it. Mickey Shaughnessy is Jumbo, supposed to be the toughest guy in town. There is a good chemistry between MacLaine and Glenn Ford, she falls for him gradually, which woman could resist such a perfect hero? Even though it has the same style it does not come close to "Destry Rides Again", but it is still an enjoyable western.

Marshall's "The Sheepman" (Shot in Montrose, California, and in the San Juan range of the Colorado Rockies), now ranks with many as the best Western comedy of all time… This is using the word 'comedy' in the classical, theatrical sense—not in terms of spoofy fun and games, but humor arising from character and situation… "The Sheepman," in fact, is a most exciting picture, solidly based on one of the fiercest Western issues, although it has received comparatively barely enough attention; the bitter animosity prevailing between cattlemen and sheepmen...So furious was the long-standing quarrel that it often exploded into a malevolence that was an exposed piece on the name of 'cowboy'—involving the murder of sheep and shepherds alike… Wyoming and Arizona both experienced the nastier manifestations…Sheep and cattle don't mix—this is worked out to be an agricultural statement the truth of which is self-evident—and so when Glenn Ford arrives in cattle territory, cheerfully proclaiming that he's bringing in sheep, all is set for a full-scale feuding...But there's something incongruous in the sight of sheep in the Western movie setting—especially when there's a hard man in charge of them… By the standards of cattlemen sheep-herding is unmanly, more unworthy even than sod-busting... And so the comedy element is built in—the disgust of the cattlemen at the mere sight of sheep, only equaled by disgust at the sight of Ford, taking care of them, entirely causing a great feeling of embarrassment…Marshall handles it all beautifully and is well served by first rate comedy talent—Ford (again the steel behind the smile, but an easier smile); Shirley Maclaine, many people's favorite comedienne, in marvelous form; Edgar Buchanan, as a devious freewheeling old-timer; Mickey Shaughnessy, as Jumbo the toughest cowboy in the town; Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales, the much depressed-looking herdsman…It's a great mixture, nicely stirred—not forgetting the 'straight man' cattle baron, Leslie Nielsen