A Lawless Street

Some time back I picked up a box set of Randolph Scott Westerns, on which one of the movies was A Lawless Street.

Scott plays Calem Ware, Marshal of Medicine Bend, his latest stop in a career that's taken him from town to town as he's more or lest led a wandering career for his own safety. Not only that, but it cost him the girl he loves. Little does he know all of this is going to catch up to him.

The west is slowly becoming civilized, but the business bigwigs of Medicine Bend want to keep it an open town, so they hire a gunman to kill Ware while he's at the barbershop, but it doesn't quite work. Meanwhile, Hamer Thorne (Warner Anderson), one of the men who hired the killer, is also bringing a troupe of actors to town. One of them is Tally (Angela Lansbury), who just happens to be the woman who left Ware because he refused to settle down, or who just really couldn't settle down, take your pick.

Now Ware has good reason to settle down, thinking perhaps he can finally win Tally back, but he's going to have to deal with one more hired killer, Harley (Michael Pate).

To be honest, A Lawless Street feels a lot like a programmer, a movie that has a competent plot but could be easily substituted for any of a hundred different 1950s westerns. I have to admit that I'm not the biggest fan of westerns, which is probably why although I didn't exactly find anything wrong with this, I also found it to be not particularly memorable. It's the sort of movie that's perfect for watching as a Saturday matinee if you want to be entertained, but if you want to watch something truly great, you'll need to watch something else.

At the price I paid, however, the box set is more than worth it, and will definitely be worth it to anybody who likes westerns in general, and Randolph Scott in particular.