Adventures in Silverado

This sagebrush saga was the 16th feature made by cult B-movie director Phil Karlson (Walking Tall) in his first four years as a director. But it's not Karlson's finest hour, and he struggles to jolt William Bishop out of his lethargy as the stagecoach hustler whose arrival in a California mining town is coolly received by wagon boss Gloria Henry and her chief driver, Forrest Tucker. The plot encompasses local water shortages and mysterious bandit "The Monk" in a story originally by Robert Louis Stevenson, who also appears as a character, looking for material for a story. A bit more action on the plains might not have gone amiss, but Karlson keeps things taut on his meagre budget.