Directed by William Castle
Produced by Sam Katzman
Screen Play by Robert E. Kent
Director Of Photography: Lester H. White
Film Editor: Viola Lawrence
Cast: Brett King (Joe Branch), Barbara Lawrence (Kate Manning), James Griffith (Bob Dalton), Bill Phipps (Bill Dalton), John Cliff (Grat Dalton), Rory Mallinson (Bob Ford), William Tannen (Emmett Dalton), Richard Garland (Gilkie), Nelson Leigh (Father Kerrigan)
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So glad to see The Fastest Guns Of The West: The William Castle Western Collection turn up in my mailbox. Couldn’t wait to crack it open and give it a whirl. You get Klondike Kate (1943), Conquest Of Cochise (1953), Jesse James Vs. The Daltons (1953), Masterson Of Kansas (1954), Battle Of Rogue River (1954), The Gun That Won The West (1955), Duel On The Mississippi (1955) and Uranium Boom (1956). All directed by William Castle. Most produced by Sam Katzman. And all eight for less than $15.
Jesse James Vs. The Daltons is about as historically accurate as Blazing Saddles (1974) is. Joe Branch (Brett King) might be the son of Jesse James. He and Kate Manning (Barbara Lawrence) — he saves her from a being lynched — hook up with the Dalton Gang to retrieve some loot and locate Jesse, alive or dead.
It’s silly, fast-paced and loads of fun. The picture runs just over an hour, with Castle and DP Lester H. White throwing coffee pots, bullets and dying bad guys at the 3-D camera whenever possible. There’s plenty of ridin’, fightin’ and shootin’, though you can tell the schedule kept the action from getting the staging it needed. It’s a bit sloppy at times.
This might have been Brett King’s only lead, and it was certainly his last feature. He’d do nothing but TV for the rest of his career. After a couple episodes of The Green Hornet in 1967, King and his wife moved to Harbour Island, Bahamas, and opened the Coral Sands Hotel. He became a mover and shaker in the tourism industry down there.
Barbara Lawrence has a decent part here, though there seemed to have been no effort to make her even slightly resemble a woman from the late 19th century. You see that a lot in 50s Westerns. She looks good in jeans, and I guess that was more important (King just happens to have a pair that fits her in his saddlebag). Barbara’s career wasn’t a long one — she gave up movies for real estate — though she’s in some good stuff, including the cool Regalscope sci-fi picture Kronos (1957).
James H. Griffith plays one of the Daltons. He’s always worth watching, and even though he gets third billing, his part isn’t all that big in this one. Castle would give him bigger, better parts in his next two Westerns: Masterson Of Kansas (1954, included in this set) and The Law Vs. Billy The Kid (1954).
Jesse James Vs. The Daltons was shot in Technicolor and 3-D, and it was to be projected at 1.85. It appears here 2-D, of course, and full frame. The picture looks quite good, but as you can imagine, there’s a lot of dead space at the top and bottom of the frame. The zoom feature on my TV took care of some of that. (Mill Creek licenses these pictures from Columbia and works with what the studio sends them.)
The rest of the set looks even better. The real jewel is the black and white Uranium Boom (1956), which looks gorgeous. You’d almost think you were looking at a Blu-Ray. The Fastest Guns Of The West: The William Castle Western Collection is a terrific set, something many of us have been hoping for. As I see it, William Castle could do no wrong, and these movies are good, cheap fun — thanks to Mill Creek for giving us such a budget-friendly, storage-space friendly package. Highly, highly recommended.
To the fine folks at Mill Creek: while you’re serving up William Castle, how about a set of the Whistler movies?
I got my set as well and I fully agree with you!! Excellent on all counts.
I’d scoop up sets like this forever!
Just ordered it. Only £9 in UK. Thanks for info
Mine is arriving this week!
You won’t be disappointed.
While this set is definitely a great deal, but for me the only 2 films I don’t have are Klondike Kate & Uranium Boom. I have no interest in Klondike… but I would definitely like to see William Talman in Uranium Boom. Give a little take a little. Gots to think about it.
Oh, I was wanting to see “Klondike Kate” (1943), perhaps just for the opportunity to see the ‘Detour duo’ of Neal and Savage in a different scenario. Not to mention old-time fave Glenda Farrell. But I never could quite get myself to go the high price of the m.o.d. for a film that would indeed likely be pretty lame. And upon viewing it, yep, it was both feather-weight and feather-brained. I’m about as forgiving as a B-movie fanatic can be, but some of the wartime-era B-product from Columbia (as well as Universal) can be amazingly cheap and cheesey. I’ve often supposed that things like the wartime gas-rationing (cutting back on location shooting), and the undemanding audiences who were frequenting cinemas at very high levels, among other things, led to a brief slackening of B-movie quality for a few short years.
“Jesse James vs. The Daltons” (1953) was hokey and more than a bit ridiculous, but also good fun. Moved by at such a quick pace, and was visually quite pleasant on the eyes. Had a great time with it, despite its innate silliness. Familiar with most of the other films, but I still find this Castle western dvd-set an extremely welcome sight. I sure hope Mill Creek can continue with Sony, delivering more sets like this. I’d be particularly partial to a Buck Jones set, as I love that batch of 1930-34 westerns he made for Columbia. A lot of offbeat gems in those.
Bert, I would also be VERY partial to a Mill Creek set of 1930-34 Buck Jones films. The highest point of his movie CV, I feel.
The early Buck Jones B-Westerns are IMHO in a completely different class to most of the nonsense that comprises this particular sub-genre and, apart from a few over-priced Columbia MODs and some fairly ropey VCI releases, these are conspicuously unavailable. The same could be said for the also-excellent early B-Westerns that George O’Brien made with Fox which are mostly far more interesting than his later stuff for RKO, the bulk of which has already been released by Warner Archive. Personally I’d even settle for watchable grey-market bootlegs of these particular movies, and any kind of ‘official’ releases would be a cause for genuine excitement.
It’s a shame that THE LAW VS BILLY THE KID was not included in this set ,but as I mentioned before,my copy should be here soon.
Does anyone have HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL THE COMPLETE SERIES from Paramount?One of the reviews says that the theme song is not featured on each episode at the beginning and end .
Graham, I think HGWT went for some time before the song was added. Not sure when exactly.
If you watch several of the WB TV series you will note the same thing. “SUGARFOOT”, “MAVERICK” and possibly “CHEYENNE” had the music at the opening and closing but the song had not yet arrived! Certainly for Season One of each series.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARY COOPER MAY 7TH 1901 .
Loads of fun is all the recommendation I need.
PS: The foundation garments worn by some leading ladies of 1950s westerns makes me slap my head. Just a little effort, folks. Please!
Good review Toby, and l think the unknown to me, Brett King, did OK in the lead role. Let’s hope many people buy this one; it’s still worth getting if you only like half the films in the set.
Yeah, I thought Brett King did fine. I want to seek him out in some of the smaller parts he played. He’s in some good stuff — Battleground, Operation Pacific, The Racket. Anybody who gets a Purple Heart AND turns up on Dragnet is OK in my book!
I hope this one sells well. First, it’s cool stuff. Second, its success will make for others to follow.
Am really enjoying this DVD set and hope more are planned,
Also wanted to call everyone’s attention to Mike Clark’s review of SINGING GUNS and the nice things he has to say about our leader, Toby.
https://www.mediaplaynews.com/singing-guns-review/
John many thanks for the link-great review and swell that “Our Man’s”
fame is spreading.
I also note with interest that Glenn at the influential Cinesavant
has SINGING GUNS on his to be reviewed list.
I always anguish when my beloved Hannibal 8 goes into up-market
mode and they are really on a culture binge at the moment-no place for
a middle lowbrow like yours truly.
Where’s THE MAZE where’s THE STRANGLERS OF BOMBAY I ask in vain
so I can only counter react by dragging H8 type fare over here.
In any case we already discussed THE MAZE on the previous thread and I
for one was delighted to see this 50’s classic get such an awesome
transfer,.
One of the more interesting snippets on the commentary was that Allied
Artists were intending to make three films in England,not only THE MAZE
but also the Bowery Boys LOOSE IN LONDON and Selander’s interesting
Gothic Swashbuckler THE HIGHWAYMAN.
Stringent UK tax laws sunk all this sadly.
The Bowery Boys were incredibly popular in England and often played
in “flea pit” cinemas as the main feature. (as did many of the Bomba films)
The only fault I could find with Kino’s THE MAZE is that I wish that the
Veronica Hurst interview had been longer than a mere 6 minutes.
I would have loved to hear her experiences making her follow up
Allied Artists picture ROYAL AFRICAN RIFLES.
I live in hope that Kino might be able to give us restored versions of
not only ROYAL AFRICAN RIFLES but also THE HIGHWAYMAN.
Toby of course is used to my warped sense of humor..it’s mighty fine
that The Hannibal 8 has such a broad base which makes the whole thing
such fun…you never know what’s going to turn up next.
Sign me up for a Whistler set from Mill Creek and I might add
Russell Hayden and Jungle Jim to the list as well.
Just to let everyone know that I’ve cancelled my pre-order on amazon Germany for NAKED IN THE SUN, due to be released on May 11th, because, when I pre-ordered it a few weeks ago, it stated on the item page that it was in both German and English, but I’ve just noticed that they’ve now amended the description to say it is only in German. So I thought well, I’m not paying out that much if there’s no English dialogue, so I cancelled it. If any others here have pre-ordered this DVD, you haven’t got long to cancel it. Only another day.
David,I had a look on Amazon De but could only find NAKED IN THE SUN on VHS.Maybe I should have typed in the German title.
WILLIAM CASTLE WESTERNS arrived yesterday and I watched JESSE JAMES VS THE DALTONS for the first time.
Today I bought THE UNFORGIVEN 1960 ,a film I am not too familiar with and I am halfway through watching it.
Yes, you have to look for it under the German title
Die Rache des Indianers. I’ve never seen JESSE JAMES VS. THE DALTONS. As far as I remember, THE UNFORGIVEN is a good Western, although I didn’t like the moustache that Audie Murphy had in the film. It didn’t suit him.
David ,that same label has SUGARFOOT with Randolph Scott listed with German and English included.Pity there is not a back view of the cover .
Season One of THE HIGH CHAPARRAL is coming out on DVD in August from Shout Factory.
I have now watched all of the movies including the ones I already had on the William Castle westerns release ,and although I enjoyed most of them I do think they should have had THE FASTEST GUNS OF THE WEST out of the title and named it something else.