Friday, July 22, 2011

Massacre (1956)


Twentieth Century-Fox
Directed by Louis King
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, VCI Entertainment)

Stern Dane Clark leads a group of Mexican Federales in search of Indians with illegal guns. This turns out to be one of the better examples of a noir-western: Martha Roth is excellent as the femme fatale. Downbeat ending further distances this from your typical western. I'm guessing audiences at the time were expecting Roy Rogers or something, and this is about as far away from an escapist, "feel good" western as you can get. The green-red Ansco color scheme is a bit muted on the brownish VCI print, but still retains enough to give it a feel for the original flavor, in widescreen as well.

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