Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Plot heavy western that should please Scott fans, even if the film doesn't. In fact, the lantern jaw actor carries the 80-minutes, at the same time supporting players drift in and out rather aimlessly. Bounty hunter Kipp (Scott) is on the trail of three baddies who've blended into Twin Forks, so that their identities are now hidden. As a result, Kipp has to figure out who the guilty ones are. Trouble is the townspeople don't take kindly to being under suspicion, so he's got his work cut out for him.A plot like this relies greatly on script, which I found pretty loosely structured. Except for Kipp, none of the other many characters are sharply etched. Thus the mystery element never really gels, and with that goes much of the suspense until the last ten minutes. As you might expect this is not a scenic western, with most of the action taking place in a studio town. What the film does have going for it--in addition to Scott-- is the great Marie Windsor as, surprise, surprise, a dancehall girl. I just wish they had given her more to do. Some verbal face-offs between her and Scott would be explosive. Looks to me also like director deToth couldn't really engage with the script, despite his proved record with outstanding westerns—Ramrod (1947), Day of the Outlaw (1959).Overall, the oater shows off Scott's powerful presence, but, I'm sorry to say, not much else.

The Bounty Hunter casts Randolph Scott working in that profession, condemned in polite society, but necessary to bringing law and order to the west. Scott is hired by the Pinkerton Detective Agency to trail three outlaws who were part of a gang of seven who robbed a train and killed several people in the process. Four of them are accounted for, but the Pinkertons have no clue as to the others. Scott picks up where they left off and the trail takes him to the New Mexico town of Twin Forks.The only clue he has is that one of them was wounded so Scott begins questioning the town doctor and his pretty daughter Dolores Dorn. Needless to say his presence and reputation have the whole town of Twin Forks real nervous. Even sheriff Howard Petrie isn't really crazy about Scott's investigation.Director Andre DeToth did several good westerns in the Forties and Fifties and The Bounty Hunter was definitely one of them. DeToth keeps the action and suspense both going and I have to say when the identity of the three outlaws is finally learned you will be surprised. And there will be some juicy red herrings thrown in for good measure.One of the better Randolph Scott westerns of the Fifties a must for all of his fans.

The Bounty Hunter sees Randolph Scott star as a Bounty Hunter tracking down three murdering train robbers who may have settled down in the small town of Twin Forks. It's directed by Andre de Toth, in what was the last of six Westerns he made with Scott. It's written by Winston Miller (story) & Finlay McDermid, and features support acting from Marie Windsor, Ernest Borgnine, Dolores Dorn & Howard Petrie. Music is by David Buttolph and Edwin B. DuPar photographs it at Redrock Canyon & the Warner Ranch in California. Coming as it did during the 3D boom of 1953/54, it was shot in 3D but ended up being released in standard flat 2D. Out of Warner Brothers it was shot in their own color format known as WarnerColor.During the early days when civilisation was pushing its frontiers farther and farther West, there roamed a special creed of men. . .neither outlaws nor officers of the law, yet more feared than either. For reward money--they tracked down criminals wanted dead or alive, and made themselves both judge and executioner in some lonely court of no appeal. They were called "Bounty Hunters".The WarnerColor may be dull and lifeless here, but that in no way sums up this perky Randy Scott Oater. Scott was always at his best when playing loners or troubled and pained drifters, in short, when away from a group dynamic he was allowed to flourish as the fine actor he was. So it be here as he lays it on as a no nonsense good bad guy! Quipping away in the face of aggression, Scott is able to portray a man not to be messed with-who is happy to kill for cash-yet remain charming and always endearing himself to the audience. It's quite a knack to be so tough yet also be so affable. But Scott on form could do it in his sleep, and to my mind that makes this an essential film for Scott fans to consider outside of his work for Boetticher & Peckinpah.Once he reaches Twin Forks, the film gathers apace and starts to unfold as a whodunit like mystery. Sure the writing is not forming the townsfolk with any great urgency, and by golly it isn't hard to figure out who the hiding out villains are. But watching the town start to crack under the strain of either being suspicious of thy neighbours, or fretting about being found out, makes for an entertaining piece as Scott moves about them with almost sadistic glee. The smiling assassin comes to mind! It put me in mind of one of Audie Murphy's best film's, No Name On the Bullet, so any fans of that film should certainly get much from this one.There's nothing to write home about technically, Toth deals in standard file and rank direction and DuPar's photography is lost within the dull sheen deliverance at Warner Ranch. While the support cast are nicely dressed, and made up, but ultimately just talking props serving to let Scott grasp the film with both hands. But grasp it he does! With gun in hand, tongue in cheek and the heart of a lion, he lifts this piece above its many other budgetary failings. 7/10

Hollywood filmmakers have consistently showed nothing but contempt for the eponymous character in the Randolph Scott western "The Bounty Hunter," a solid, somewhat predictable, but hard-edged Warner Brothers' sagebrush shoot'em up directed by the stalwart Andre de Toth who helmed several Scott outings and received an Oscar nomination for the script that he co-authored with William Bowers for "The Gunfighter." Bounty hunters were reviled as morally depraved bushwhackers by Hollywood until the late 1950s when Charles Bronson appeared in the low-budget western "Showdown at Boot Hill" and Steve McQueen embarked on a three year television run with "Wanted Dead or Alive." Nevertheless, bounty hunters received chilly receptions wherever they rode, and these films proved to be the exception to the rule that bounty hunters could serve as heroic protagonists. In "Showdown at Boot Hill," Bronson spent the entire time trying to collect the reward money that was rightfully owed him because he had gunned down a beloved member of the community, while McQueen had to prove himself a likable fellow despite being a man hunter in "Wanted Dead or Alive." "The Bounty Hunter" may not be a pivotal epic in the evolution of the bounty hunter, but it reflects Hollywood's clear lack of sympathy for this objectionable character and how he fitted in with society. What makes this 1954 western so interesting aside from "My Darling Clementine" scenarist Winston Miller's formulaic narrative is how the Randolph Scott character conducts himself and the conversion that occurs at fade-out that allows society to assimilate him by fade out."The Bounty Hunter" opens with this foreword. "During the early days when civilization was pushing its frontiers farther and farther west, there roamed a special breed of men . . . neither outlaws nor officers of the law, yet more feared than either. For the reward money . . . they tracked down criminals wanted 'Dead or Alive, and made themselves judge and executioner in some lonely court of no appeal. They were called "Bounty Hunters." Thirteen years later, Italian director Sergio Leone provided a somewhat different foreword to his spaghetti western "For A Few Dollars More." You see the difference that the intervening years had made: "Where Life has no value, death sometimes has its price. This is why the bounty hunters appeared." Interestingly, whereas "For A Few Dollars More" opens with the bounty hunter bushwhacking an outlaw, "The Bounty Hunter" opens with an outlaw trying to bushwhack the protagonist. The bounty hunter that Randolph Hunter plays in "The Bounty Hunter" is every bit as tough and ruthless as the bounty killer that Clint Eastwood created in "For A Few Dollars More." One character observes cynically about Jim Kipp's tenacity, "Well, you know what they say about you, you'd turn in your grandmother on her birthday if there was a reward on her." The mentality of the 1950s prohibited Scott from wearing a beard like Eastwood and he doesn't draw first in a showdown. In fact, despite the hostility expressed toward bounty hunters, the filmmakers go out of their way to whitewash the Scott character as much as possible. He doesn't shoot first and ask questions later and he tries to bring his prey in alive. Moreover, he tosses back the small fry. A young rancher tries to bushwhack him, but Kipp disarms him and refuses to ship the kid back to prison. Later, Kipp explains his origins as a bounty hunter. He watched helplessly as his storekeeper father was gunned down by outlaws because he didn't have enough money for them to steal. This incident prompted the young Kipp to become the most dreaded bounty hunter.After Kipp has picked up his $500 bounty reward for the outlaw, a Pinkerton Detective approaches him in the barbershop with a proposition. About a year ago, seven masked robbers held up a train with $100-thousand in currency from the Philadelphia mint bound for Dodge City. They killed three guards and crippled several bystanders. A local trailed the desperadoes and killed four of them and wounded another in the leg. The robbers vanished off the face of the earth and none of the bills from the hold-up have appeared in circulation. The Pinkertons have run into a dead end and they need to reassign their best agents to other cases so the famous detective agency offers Jim Kipp the sum of $10-thousand dollars to do what they couldn't—find the outlaws and the loot. Reluctantly, Kipp takes on the job and rides across the desert to a way station frequented by owlhoots and learns that the survivors paid for three canteens of water. Kipp rides to Twin Peaks, the nearest place that the hoodlums could have ridden in the parched desert wasteland without dying from thirst. Predictably, he receives another chilly reception, especially from a hotel clerk, Bill Rachin (Ernst Borgnine) who walks with a limp. Kipp tells the inquisitive Rachin that he will conclude his business in a week's time. Kipp questions the local doctor, Dr. R.L. Spencer (Harry Antrim of "Baby Face Nelson") about a man who might have needed his help for a gunshot wound a year ago. The doctor isn't exactly truthful with Kipp, but he defends his actions to his daughter. Kipp wasn't a lawman so the good doctor didn't have to violate the sacred patient/physician oath of confidentiality to reveal the truth.Kipp's presence in Twin Peaks has everybody upset and on the prod. Several surprises await anybody who winds up watching this entertaining oater, not the least of which is Kipp's refusal to send an escaped convict back to jail. In fact, the youthful convict defends himself by pointing out that he committed the crime a long time ago and now is a responsible member of the community with a wife and a baby on the way. In the end, according to those moral dictates of the 1950s, the Kipp character stops bounty hunting, becomes the town lawman, and takes Spencer's daughter as his wife.