Man with the Gun

One of Robert Mitchum's strengths was his ability to grab a western like this by its throat and turn it into a personal statement. Mitchum plays a brooding gunman who cleans up a town to try to win back his estranged wife, played by the excellent Jan Sterling. There's a fair amount of sadism on show (though nothing by today's standards), and the mood and tone are satisfyingly grim. It's an impressive directorial debut from former Orson Welles associate Richard Wilson, whose best movie was to be 1959's Al Capone, starring Rod Steiger. Watch for a young Angie Dickinson in an early role, and enjoy the fine photography from the great veteran Lee Garmes, who'd worked on such outstanding films as Shanghai Express, Scarface and Duel in the Sun. On its release here, the film was called The Trouble Shooter and was seriously underrated.