The Fiend Who Walked the West (1958)

Director:  Gordon Douglas

Writers:  Harry Brown, Philip Yordan, Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer, Eleazar Lipsky

Composer:  ?

Starring:  Hugh O'Brian, Robert Evans, Dolores Michaels, Linda Cristal, Stephen McNally, June Blair, Edward Andrews, Ron Ely, Ken Scott, Emile Meyer

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Don't turn your back on the Kooky Killer with the baby face!

Plot:  A convicted bank robber is serving his sentence, and wishing nothing more than to finish his time and get back to his family, gets involved with a psychotic, homicidal inmate who turns on him and winds up terrorizing his wife and murdering his friends.

My rating:  7/10

Will I watch it again?   Maybe.

Well, well, well, this picture is full of all kinds of surprises, and most of them are in the last half hour.  For 1958, this seems like a serious change of pace for a Western.  There's some heavy shit bandied about.  Felix (Evans) is a psychotic killer.  His murder count is probably more than 8 from what we see, not to mention what he'd done before.  It's nice that Hardy (O'Brian) has a character arc.  What he becomes in the last few minutes is bad-fuckin'-ass.  I've been aware of Hugh O'Brian's name for decades but I couldn't have told you anything about him until now.  This guy is one tall, hunky, manly badass.  Robert Evans, on the other hand, uh, I would say the less said the better. 

I'm in the camp that he's woefully miscast.  I can see what he was going for but he didn't have the acting chops to pull it off convincingly.  He's OK, I guess, but he was often distracting with his inability to sell it fully.  I can't think of anyone at the moment that would've killed it but you can see he needed more lessons or something.  It was refreshing, though, seeing a character like his in a Western.  He was brutal.  This is a remake of KISS OF DEATH (1947), a film noir that I haven't seen in over twenty years.  I need to fix that .  The only thing I remember besides the chilly performance by Richard Widmark (that laugh of his, man!) was the scene where he pushes an old lady in a wheelchair down a staircase, giggling gleefully.  I'd say give this flick a watch.  It's different and that roller coaster of a ride that is the last twenty minutes will make you glad you did.