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Four Guns to the Border
R2 - United Kingdom - Simply Media Review written by and copyright: Matthew Crossman (25th May 2016). |
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The Film
 We first meet Cully (Rory Calhoun) and his bank robbing team as they blow the safe in a saloon only to find it empty. The next day Cully admonishes his team which consists of an 'old timer' called Dutch (John McIntire), Bronco (George Nader) and a native American Indian called Yaqui (Jay Silverheels). The quartet are making their way to a way station owned by a proprietor called Greasy (Nestor Paiva) when they run into Simon Buhmer (Walter Brennan) and his daughter Lolly (Colleen Miller) who is a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Dutch knows Buhmer and the two exchange pleasantries before Cully and his crew move on to Greasy's place. Once their they set up and camp and later on they are joined, once again by the Buhmers. Bronco is quite taken with Lolly but when he tries to buy her material for a dress as a gift he is threatened by her Father. Simon Buhmer will not entertain the idea of his daughter settling down with a gun-slinger despite him once being one himself. Later on that night, after all the parties have retired for the evening a thunderstorm hits. Lolly is concerned for the horses so she goes out to the stable, in just her nightdress, to comfort them. Cully notices her and follows. Once Cully gets to the stables he sees Lolly, her nightdress soaked through with the rain, and roughly kisses her. Lolly responds in kind but then Cully looks to push it too far and she fights back, first by slapping him across the face and then by almost impaling him on a pitch fork. Cully calms down and Lolly now kisses him. As the embrace ends Simon Buhmer arrives. He warns Cully off his daughter and he and Lolly then leave in the middle of the night. The next day Cully has planned a bank robbery at a bank that has had three attempted robberies, all unsuccessful, in the past five years. Meanwhile Lolly is still sulking about having to leave the way station and in a fit of petulance she turns her horse around and gallops back to the way station to be with Cully once more. However, she does not get far before falling from her horse. Lolly's Father catches up with her and helps her to her feet but then has to put her horse down as it is too badly injured. The pair are now out in the desert which is Apache country with only one horse. Meanwhile Cully puts his plan into action. He rides into town, a town he was once kicked out by his best friend and Sheriff Jim Flannery (Charles Drake) and confronts Jim. Cully challenges Jim to a fight and whilst they have at it with the nearly the whole town watching on Cully's remaining group ride into town and very quietly rob the bank. The fight is broken up by Jim's Wife and Cully rides back out of town and meets up with his cohorts. They agree to ride to the Mexican border and split the money up but on the way Yaqui sees that Buhmer's horse has lost a shoe and has gone lame. They follow the Buhmer's trail and then hear gunshots. The Buhmer's have been ambushed by Indians. Cully and his gang ride to the Buhmer's rescue and in the ensuing battle Dutch, Bronco and Yaqui are killed and Cully badly injured. Just after the battle with the Indians has ended Jim and his posse arrive seeking to apprehend Cully and his men for the robbery. Before they can get down into the valley Lolly convinces her Father to take Cully with them to their homestead. They manage to evade the posse and get back but Cully is badly injured and the posse is closing in. 'Four Guns to the Border' is an unusual Western in that we are asked to side with Cully throughout. Played well by Rory Calhoun Cully is still a man with extremely questionable morals. He is happy to steal and treats woman with little to no regard and is rather brutish. The rest of his gang come across rather better. They might also have the same questionable morals but they at least have personable characters. Yaqui and Bronco are the best of friends although they spend a lot of the time fighting it always ends up with both characters laughing. Dutch is the old timer and the wisest of the bunch and you get the impression he is living in a World that has left him behind. Despite boasting a pretty impressive cast it's Colleen Miller as Lolly who steals the show at almost every turn. Released in 1954 this must have been pretty racy for the time as Miller flashes ample thigh and chest (within reason, of course) and at one stage seductively sucks on a stick of candy and does so with such aplomb it had this reviewer rather taken aback. No wonder this movie never gets shown on a Sunday afternoon any more! The scene where she attends the horses in a soaking wet nightdress in saucily staged and again I was completely surprised that a scene such as this was in a film from this era. If there is a weak point to the film it's most definitely the script. There are many scenes, especially in the opening 25 minutes where the film is very dialogue light and the ending is, quite frankly, a huge disappointment. Still, if was a fun ride getting there and definitely worth watching if only to see Miller slink seductively across the screen and Calhoun smoulder at any given opportunity.
Video
Simply Media have presented this DVD in it's original aspect ratio of 1.37:1 The main feature is preceded on the disc with a warning about the archival nature of the footage but actually it's not too bad. Colours look a little washed out and faded but only a little. There is some grain, which is to be expected and plenty of little scratches and marks but overall it's perfectly acceptable for a film of this age.
Audio
A simple dual mono soundtrack is available in the English language only. It's clear throughout and the sounds of horse hooves on the desert floor resonate quite nicely whilst gunshot sound a little bit weak to me. There are no subtitles available on this DVD.
Extras
None.
Overall
A fun Western with a very good ensemble cast is let down with a weak script and simplistic and out of character ending. Rory Calhoun does his best to portray the bank robber with a skewed view on life but he's acted off the screen at every turn, first by the actors playing his gang, and then by the lovely Colleen Miller who gives her role a sexy, yet naïve turn that is turned on it's head in the final minutes.
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