A Gunman Alone
Having arrived in town Cruze (George Montgomery) quickly comes to the attention of the Mayor when he ends up in a fight with the three Moran brothers and handles himself nicely despite being out numbered. Impressed the Mayor asks him to become the town's new sheriff something which Cruze is not keen on as he has done it before and knows it is a thankless, lonely task but ends up accepting. But it leads him back in to a confrontation with the Moran brothers over some cattle rustling and who try to kill him. With none of the town willing to join him in a posse to go after the Moran brothers Cruze goes it alone.
So here we are again with another 1950s western which only ever melts into the hug mixing pot of forgettable westerns from the era when they were popular. Technically there is nothing wrong with "The Lone Gun" as it ticks the boxes of things a 1950s western should feature but despite being directed by western veteran Ray Nazarro ends up a forgettable foray in to the Wild West.
The trouble is that "The Lone Gun" whilst having plenty of opportunity to stand out from the crowd only feels like a western made on auto pilot with regular characters, mind numbingly ordinary dialogue and an editing style which once might have seemed innovative with layered shots of a cattle drive over the men hollering but now just came across as ordinary. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if some of the bigger scenes of the cattle drive was actually footage from other movies as the size of these shots look like they are out of budget for this movie. And to be frank once the pieces are in place after about 20 minutes the ending is already marked out for you.
What this all boils down to is that "The Lone Gun" has a good cowboy, some bad cowboys and some shooting but it offers up little which any western fan won't have seen in a dozen other westerns and so making this another western to be watched only to tick it off a list.
