The Fastest Gun Alive: Glenn Ford’s best performance? I think it just might be……

FORD GOES DEEP INTO THE SAUCE IN THIS 50’S WESTERN

Glenn Ford is effective in this western.  So good that this might be is best acting performance of his career.   Another forgotten flick of the 1950’s, but it should not be.  It proves that great films were produced in that ten-year time frame, and this Western can hold its own with any before and after.  (Credit to director/screenwriter Russell Rouse)

Nice work by all the supporting actors. Limited production that relied on character development and storyline. And it made a wonderful look in it’s black and white print. This psychological drama might be set in the West, but it runs much deeper than a Western usually does.  Randolph Scott would approve of this film, and I could see him playing the lead.  But Ford got it, and thanks to the producers and director for the choice. 

As a life, when you can do something better than anyone else and doing it releases some sort of mental affliction that could be good, but in this case, is detrimental, we have some issues. Ford’s “George”, having a label as the “fastest” gun alive, can bring the destruction of a man, and what happens to him is just downright awful for the soul.  This is felt as much as it is seen in Ford’s take on the character, as he has always had a way of bringing a character to the screen that we seem to care about, which he does here.  Forget one-dimensional Western action gunslinger here. Ford will not allow it.

In response to a top film critic, Arthur Grant, and his fine review, I had to take a deeper look into this “best” western. I had viewed this flick as a child and, as an adult, on various occasions, and it always stuck with me emotionally. The film itself is not just some simple western. It is deep as hell, a hell that “George” found himself occupied on the streets of his “new” town.

When you can do something better than anyone else, as Ford could do,  but having to hide it as of his previous history, and it causes repercussions on how others view you, that can be a raping of your psyche. And doing it, hiding in plain sight,  releases some sort of mental affliction, a bad one, a man has to deal with it. But here, in Ford’s character’s case, having a label as the “fastest” gun alive and incidents he cannot ignore give us the drama and tension that bring the movie to its final conclusion.

Ford has a way of bringing a character to life, which he does here and has done in other roles throughout his career. Some scenes in this movie are reminiscent of past work that Ford has “played” before, and he is damn good at it. His mental breakdown that led to his hitting the bottle again, after four years sober,  hit the spot on. But it was not his drinking that was the issue in the final analysis (he showed he could hold his drink without a problem), but his need to open up to the townsfolk to tell them who he was.  The hidden secret was just too much to keep, and his world in the town would not cooperate.  Ford gets through his emotional issue and does what needs to be done. His previous life, hidden from his new town family, was finally out in the open, and he became the man he was.  A good man with issues, as most human beings have, he fought the good fight and won his life back.   Not a coward, and not a braggart, the real “George” showed the town that he was the fastest gun alive, and respect was his again.