Directed by Andre De Toth
Produced by Harry Joe Brown
Associate Producer: Randolph Scott
Screen Play by Kenneth Gamet
Based Upon “Yankee Gold” by John M. Cunningham
Film Editors: Gene Havlick, ACE and James Sweeney, ACE
Musical Director: Mischa Bakaleinikoff
Cast: Randolph Scott (Jeff Travis), Claire Trevor (Josie Sullivan), Joan Weldon (Shelby Conroy), George Macready (Jules Mourret), Alfonso Bedoya (Degas), Lee Marvin (Dan Kurth), Ernest Borgnine (Bull Slager).
This is my contribution to The Blogathon For Randolph Scott, which has seen some excellent writing from a group of learned film fans.
It’s easy to see The Stranger Wore A Gun (1953) as just another Randolph Scott movie. Not as good as some, better than a few. Of the six Scott pictures directed by Andre de Toth, it might be the least. (To me, 1951’s Man In The Saddle is the best.)
But what makes The Stranger Wore A Gun stand out today isn’t its convoluted plotting, what a slimy bad guy George Macready is, or how great Joan Weldon looks. It’s the picture’s technical aspects, the stuff it boasted about on its one-sheet: 3-Dimensions, wide screen and stereophonic sound.
Ernest Borgnine: “The director was Andre de Toth, who wore an eye patch, having lost an eye as a kid. But here he was, directing a movie in 3D!”
A solid, resourceful filmmaker, Andre de Toth was chosen to test-drive and fine tune a few of Hollywood’s technical developments of the 50s. The second of the De Toth Scotts, Carson City (1952), was the first Warnercolor film. House Of Wax (1953) was filmed in the Natural Vision 3D format and Warnercolor, with the added bonus of stereophonic sound. The first major-studio 3D movie, it’s still considered the best use of the process during the early-50s craze.
Randolph Scott (in the trailer): “I talked it over with my partner-producer Harry Joe Brown. Naturally, we didn’t want to be left at the post in this great new technical race in the picture industry, so we decided to go all out —3D, stereophonic sound and Technicolor. Now that’s a mouthful, and it was an armful to do, but exciting.”
Working titles were I Ride Alone and Yankee Gold.
Andre de Toth: “They asked me to do it in 3D. I had qualms about it, but the conceit that killed so many people won the battle. I knew I was better than the rest of the ordinary geniuses and I thought that, single-handedly, I’d be able to stop the exodus from 3D, revive third-dimensional pictures, and gain some more experience in 3D by doing a Western. But my conceit and hope didn’t resurrect 3D. It was dead and buried by the junk thrown at the public way before we started. Too bad.”
The film’s other distinction it that it was the first film composed and shot to be projected at 1.85. This aspect ratio is still the standard, in use in theaters and on video today. What’s a shame is that these technical amenities are completely absent on the 2D, full-frame, mono DVD. (The three-track stereo elements were lost years ago.)
Scott plays Jeff Travis, a Confederate spy attached to Quantrill’s raiders. Realizing that Quantrill and his men are little more than bandits and murderers, he flees and winds up in Prescott, Arizona, after the war is over. He becomes involved with an old flame, Josie Sullivan (Claire Trevor), and falls in with some stage robbers: the sophisticated ringleader Jules Mourret (George Macready) and a couple of his henchmen, Dan Kurth (Lee Marvin) and Bull Slager (Ernest Borgnine).
Ernest Borgnine: “No sooner had I finished From Here To Eternity and gone home to New York than, bam, I was asked to come right back again to shoot a Western, The Stranger Wore A Gun… The Stranger Wore A Gun was the picture where I met a lifelong friend, Lee Marvin.”
Back to the story. Scott befriends the Conroys, a father and daughter (Joan Weldon) who run the stag line and decides he wants out of the outlaw life. It all comes to a fiery climax in the saloon. And, of course, all sorts of things are thrown at the audience over the course of its 83 minutes.
Joan Weldon: “Warners had nothing scheduled for me so they decided to put me on suspension without pay. I ran into Randy somewhere, and he heard I was suspension and called my agent and said he had a part in a picture at Columbia and would I consider doing it… It was three weeks; work; six days a week. Then Warner Bros. said, ‘She’s under contract to us, we want the money from the loan-out.’ My agent said, ‘No way. You put her on suspension; she can do what she wants with the money,’ So I did get the money.”
The Stranger Wore A Gun is a mess. The performances are fine, some of the action sequences are very well done, it moves along briskly, and it all looks great in Technicolor. But it’s hard to follow — and some of Scott’s actions don’t make sense. De Toth, as good a director as he is, could only do so much with the script he was given. Maybe they thought 3D would overcome whatever shortcomings the picture may have.
The last of the De Toth Scotts, Bounty Hunter (1954), was also shot in 3D (for Warner Bros.). But by the time it was ready for release, the boom was over. It only played flat.
Sources: De Toth On De Toth by Andre de Toth, The Films Of Randolph Scott by Robert Nott, Ernie by Ernest Borgnine, and the wonderful 3D Archive website.
50 Westerns From The 50s. 
Terrific piece, Toby! You provide some wonderful insight into the background and technical aspects of the making of the film. The film itself is so-so Scott (though that is never a real negative).
And I love Borgnine’s quote about De Toth and the eye-patch!
A good appraisal of the film and, like Jerry, I also appreciate the way you add all those background details.
I think the movie is just OK too; the muddled script (almost always the source of the problem when a film doesn’t quite work) leaves everyone with too much to do to try and overcome it.
A real shame thought that all the technical innovations of the time can’t be experienced on the version available to us.
Some of the scenes are really good, especially the fistfight.
But since it just doesn’t make sense to me, I found it tiring to try to sort all this confusing stuff out as it went along.
But as many of us have said, a bad Scott movie’s still better than about anything else.
>em>But as many of us have said, a bad Scott movie’s still better than about anything else.
Yeah, in spite of the poor plotting it’s quite watchable.
What a great idea, a Randolph Scott blogathon. I’ve been enjoying the reviews. I wish the Zane Grey westerns he made at Paramount in the early 1930s were available in decent quality so that people could see what worthwhile westerns they are. Heritage of the Desert, Wild Horse Mesa (both 1932), Sunset Pass, Man of the Forest, To the Last Man (all 1933), The Last Round-Up, Wagon Wheels (both 1934) and Home On the Range (1935) are all available, but in such poor quality most people can’t enjoy them. Henry Hathaway directed most of them.
I’ve seen The Stranger Wore a Gun projected in authentic 3-D exactly three times at the World 3-D Film Expos in the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. De Toth, who also directed the breakthrough House of Wax in 3-D, understood better than anyone how to shoot 3-D. Technically, the 3-D is flawless and it really enhances the film. When I watch the flat print on DVD I’m always a little disappointed, the 3-D brings so much to it. The studio inserted only a couple of stock footage shots that weren’t 3-D but were double-printed so as not to jar the eye. I forget now if it was a restoration or original prints, but both the left side and the right side survive in excellent condition and when properly projected the film looks terrific. Muddled though it may be, The Stranger Wore a Gun is still a crowd-pleaser after all these years. Randolph Scott rules.
Truly, not the first choice on that day you decide you’re in the mood for a Randolph Scott western, but I would love to see it in its 3D glory someday.
I’m with you — it’s not a great Scott picture, but I’d eat a bug to see it in 3D.
Hi, Toby! Randolph is a little late for his own party… my entry has been posted only now:
http://criticaretro.blogspot.com.br/2015/01/a-lei-da-fronteira-frontier-marshal-1939.html
This film has a very good cast… I’d do anything to see it in 3D!
Cheers!
Le
You’re not too late!
This is one of those movies that just by reading the synopsis and scanning that cast and director, you think “Holy Moly, this is going to be great !”. But your right its a bit of a mess. It would still be cool to get it released right however.
This is my favorite blogathon yet. Great bunch of reviews. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you. I hope next time, I can actually participate in it more myself. Thanks to everyone who kept it chugging along with posts and comments.
Yep! I think most of us agree medium level Scott;not his best but
a far cry from his worst. On the credit side,the film looks great and there
are some stunning set pieces.
I have seen this one in 3D,about 10 years ago at London’s National
Film Theatre.
Some of the transparencies (if that’s the right word) look awkward
in the location scenes.
For me there’s still plenty of fun in the movie,I love the scene when
the violence is due to erupt,the rather rotund Paul Maxey exits saying
“gotta go Iv’e got things to do!”
Toby this Randy Blogathon has been sensational-my only worry is
what are you gonna do that can top this!
It has a lot of great little moments, especially with Scott and Marvin/Borgnine. It seems to work so hard to try to pull its pieces together that it ends up overly plotted and almost impossible to follow.
As soon as its over, I’ve forgotten how it all worked — but I remember certain segments very well.
And I love Joan Weldon, probably because of Them!
This is another one I haven’t seen…just a note to say how much I enjoyed the post and the ensuing discussion — very interesting stuff.
Joan Weldon, like so many other Western actors of the era, is someone I first knew through MAVERICK (she was in one of my most favorite episodes!) — so I loved the anecdote you shared!
Best wishes,
Laura
My view of this one is pretty much the same as everyone else’s here has been, but my experience getting to that has been a little different.
Because the first time I saw it, I was 9 and enjoyed it tremendously. It was new then, and of course I saw it flat and that was fine. Whatever it lacked in being a well pulled together story, it made up for with a lot of action, most of it well-done. At the age I was then, that was plenty for me.
Of course I still like action (still like great bad guys like Lee Marvin too, as I did then), but now I like it in context of all the other elements in a Western, and like it when everything is done well and in a richer balance than here.
So, I found I had a more moderate opinion of it coming back to it later on, but for me, it was least rewarding when I finally did see it in 3D wide screen, the way others here are wanting to see it if they haven’t.
It just became a little dull to me, more than it had been. I’m kind of ambivalent about 3D now, but I went to quite a few films in that 3D Expo a few years back, mostly ones I had seen in 2D. I’m not sure any good Western ever needed it, though a few of them used it pretty well.
And I’d also say any good 3D movie is also good seen flat if it’s really good. STRANGER kind of throws a lot of things out at us, those 3D effects, and I respond most to 3D when it’s used for depth. De Toth made one of the best 3D movies in HOUSE OF WAX–he seemed more genuinely engaged by it in that than in this one to me; but the director who I think used it best was Jack Arnold, especially in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, but also his two CREATURE movies–I already loved those movies flat but was glad to see them in 3D as he did some really interesting things with it and I’ve written a little about this.
So I’m moderate on THE STRANGER WORE A GUN, especially among productions from Scott/Brown in relation to all Scott Westerns; among those it’s relatively weak but I still feel a little affection, especially because of that first viewing. I agree that of the six De Toths, the first one MAN IN THE SADDLE, which was also Scott/Brown, was definitely best and while the four Warners ones vary somewhat, there’s a lot to like and for me, RIDING SHOTGUN is also a good one, really excellent among Scott’s Warners ones.
No complaints from me about Joan Weldon either. She’s definitely an asset!
Love how we talk about this film by juggling that fact that it’s not all that good with all the cool stuff that’s in it.
I’m not a huge 3D fan, but I’ve always wanted to see this one.
Of the Warners pictures, I have a soft spot for Bounty Hunter — Scott and Marie Windsor in the same movie is a dream come true.