Nice effects though.

I wanted to but couldn't!

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

RELEASED IN 1956 and directed by Rudolph Maté, "Three Violent People" is a Western that focuses on an ex-Rebel officer (Charlton Heston) who returns home to his west Texas ranch with a new, but secretly-tarnished bride (Anne Baxter). He contends with his ne'er-do-well one-armed brother (Tom Tryon) and corrupt officials of the provisional government, who want his land & resources (Bruce Bennett and Forrest Tucker). Gilbert Roland is on hand as the conscience-reminding foreman, who has five sons (Robert Blake and Jamie Farr).This is a soapy Western with lusty acting (rather than realistic), but it does feature a fistfight in the opening act, a thrilling horse stampede/chase scene and a tense shootout at the climax, not to mention a couple suspenseful confrontation scenes. It's akin to "Duel in the Sun" (1946) in tone/theme, but not great like that standout Western. Still, the drama keeps your attention, you can't beat the cast, the locations are magnificent and there's a worthy moral. Charlton and Anne made this right after "The Ten Commandments" (1956) and it sort of fell through the cracks. THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour 40 minutes and was shot in Old Tucson, Arizona, and surrounding areas (e.g. Superstition Mountains and Apache Junction). WRITERS: James Edward Grant wrote the screenplay from a story by Leonard Praskins & Barney Slater.GRADE: B/B-

I'll take a stab at identifying the trio of characters in the title; I think it boils down to the three 'C's' - Colt (Charlton Heston), Cinch (Tom Tryon) and Cable (Forrest Tucker). Colt Saunders without question after watching him upend Lorna Hunter (Anne Baxter) with only undergarments showing; Cinch because as Colt's put upon younger brother, he carried a grudge that would have led to betrayal if he hadn't had the change of heart at the finale. I'm including Cable because he was ready to use his six-gun at the drop of a hat to take down Captain Saunders, and was the buzzard identified by Gran Vaquero Ortega (Gilbert Roland) in my summary line above.Well anyway, that's my take on things. I liked the way Gil Roland's character was written in the story. Innocencio Antonio Ortega was a romantic and a poet, with uncanny insight into the human condition. His welcome address to the new Mrs. Saunders was an inspiration to his five sons, right after Rafael got tongue tied and couldn't find the words to continue. I think it was right after this picture that Robert Blake was no longer credited as 'Bobby'; the nickname seemed more appropriate when he was Red Ryder's sidekick in the Forties.Now it made sense when Cinch backed down from challenging his brother, but what was going on when Commissioner Harrison's (Bruce Bennett) deputy Massey (John Harmon) appeared to go for a draw down on Colt earlier in the story? He had to know he would have been a goner, even if the rest of Harrison's deputies opened fire. Lorna's interference brought tensions back under control, but I couldn't figure out what the idea was here. For certain he was mortified for revealing Lorna's past, so maybe it was his way of committing suicide without having it pan out.With long time relationships under stress and a marriage on the rocks, anyone having viewed a few hundred of these era Westerns would have had a good idea that things would work out in the end. Even though Cinch cashed out as the redeemed younger brother, there was no way Colt and Laura Saunders were going to ride off into the sunset in different directions. As for those buzzards, well they wound up getting the guy with the red hair.

Three Violent People could have been little more than an standard western about post-Civil War Texans struggling against thuggish carpetbaggers trying to take their land away -- not the commonest western plot, but we could call it "Plot Eleven". Had already been done a number of times by this movie's 1956 release, perhaps best in an unpretentious 1947 Wild Bill Elliot opus. An excellent cast headed by stalwart Carlton Heston, beautiful Anne Baxter, and the always interesting Gilbert Roland would have raised Three Violent People a cut above the average oater, even if it had been filmed in black & white or standard screen color, and it would have been an entertaining and enjoyable watch. What really made it quite a lot more than just a standard western with an overpriced staff was the gorgeous Technicolor Vista Vision cinematography.When the wide-screen craze hit in the mid-fifties, there soon were a number of competing processes, including Cinemascope, Superscope, Metroscope, 1.66:1 flat, and 1.85:1 flat. Vista Vision, pioneered by Paramount Studios, was by far the most aesthetically successful of any. Cinemascope and the later, more successful Panavision used a wide-angle lens on the camera to compress the picture into a standard 35mm frame, then a reverse lens on the projector expanded the picture so that it was 75 percent wider than the old standard 4:3 ratio screen. The "flat" widescreen processes filmed with an ordinary camera lens on standard 35 mm film but with the camera far enough back that the resulting picture could be masked at the top and the bottom to create the wide-screen effect. The problem with all of these was that the blown-up picture when projected on a large screen lost resolution, contrast, and sharpness. The loss of quality was compounded by the new less-flammable, but somewhat grainier and less transparent film with which the studios had recently replaced the old crystal-clear nitrate film, which had given us all of those beautiful, luminous black & white movies of the late 1930's and 1940's. The difference was noticeable even in Technicolor films, but it had been a minor effect until the wide-screen movies.Vista Vision was filmed with a special camera with vertical sprockets which ran the film thru sideways, creating a negative three times the area of the 35 mm print, which was masked and blown-up to widescreen with a projector aperture. The result was incredibly high resolution, sharpness, richness of color, and illusion of depth, even when projected on the largest screens.The cinematography with this wonderful and expensive process as exhibited in Three Violent people is absolutely breathtaking. It makes this movie a sensuous pleasure to watch. The clarity, color, and added sense of depth that comes through even on a wide-screen digital TV delivers an almost 3-D effect. The effect was just as strong in the indoor lamplight scenes as in the expansive views of the photogenic Arizona landscape (thinly disguised as the Texas Hill Country).Three Violent People had an intelligent if not inspired script. The dialog likewise was good, though melodramatic at times. Gilbert Roland's excesses of poetry got irritating at times. It fit with his colorful character, but could have been toned down a bit. Rudolph Mate's direction was surprisingly slow-paced, especially from one who had turned out a classic thriller like DOA. It was slow-moving in the first half, but not boring because of the strong acting and solid story development. But it really picked up after Heston discovered his wife was a shady lady, and she and his brother absconded with his valuable herd of horses. There was more melodrama than action in this one, but the action was well-staged. The runaway wagon in a stampede of horses is a western cliché, but it was much better than average executed here. Also very good was the climactic shootout with the Texas ranchers using volleys from single-shot rifles to send the Yankee baddies into headlong retreat. The sets, both inside and outside were very authentic looking. Likewise, the clothes, the rifles, revolvers, and gun leather were all unusually accurate to the late 1860's era.Overall Three Violent People was a satisfying western on every level, but most of all was simply a pleasure to watch because of the stunning Vista Vision cinematography.(Other Vista Vision Westerns: The Searchers, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, One-Eyed Jacks)

But for the cast this would be a very ordinary, unsatisfying Western. I found it hard to believe that Colt Saunders (whose uniform seemed to have survived unscathed the rigours of war and defeat)would decide to marry Lorna after just a few words of conversation; a slightly longer courtship would have been more convincing. And Lorna is not the reformed character that she later appears to be; she was quite prepared to keep Saunders' money for herself until she realised what a catch he would make.The ending leaves several loose ends. Why did Harrison have to raid Saunders' ranch when he could have got it quasi-legally? Did Colt and Lorna go on to have a happy marriage? And what happened to the threat of punitive taxation on the Southerners; this wasn't a scam dreamt up by Harrison, but one backed by the government.It's the cast that lifts the film, and not just the stars. Gilbert Roland has great screen presence and we don't see enough of Forrest Tucker to justify his fifth billing.John Harmon as Massey deserves a mention for the scene in which Harrison forces him to unmask Lorna as a former good-time girl. He's obviously not sure who terrifies him more: Saunders or Harrison and Cable.