Duel At Silver Creek [DVD]

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To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. All the clichés are here but they are delivered with a slight sense of fun that helps it move smoothly.

A gang of outlaws is murdering miners and taking over their claims, but they cross the wrong man when they target the father of Luke Cromwell (Audie Murphy), a gunslinger known as "the Silver Kid. The Duel at Silver Creek is a 1952 American Western film directed by Don Siegel; his first film in the Western genre. Leonard Goldstein, the producer, has propped this routine affair against some average Technicolor scenery, and the commotion remains as pat and unsurprising as the kicked-up dust, which, in all fairness to Don Siegel's direction, is plentiful. However, that doesn't make this any less enjoyable of a film because Siegel throws in a lot of shootouts and chases to make it all exciting, while the Technicolor photography is sumptuous and the story has enough twists and cool characters to make it work.

As for the ladies, the nice one, Miss Cabot, runs around garbed like the village blacksmith, complete with smoking revolver. Unashamedly pulpy is this Western, no surprise when you see that it's an early film from legend Don Siegel. Slimy brutal villains and great characters abound in a film that sure doesn’t feel like Don Siegel’s first crack at the Wild West.

Ruthless claim-jumpers, femme fatale guile, tenacious lawman, vengeful quickdraw-turned-deputy: The Duel At Silver Creek is lean, pulpy, ‘50s b-western fun. There are a lot of elegant tracking shots here, and the way the titular duel is shot makes it clear that director Don Siegel was really relishing getting to play around in the western sandbox.A version of this article appears in print on of the National edition with the headline: THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; U. A young cowboy played by real life war hero turned movie star Audie Murphy is on a revenge quest after the claim jumping bastards.

This Audie Murphy vehicle has the feel of a B-Western, but would it be in Technicolor if it was cheap? This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. The damaged, vulnerable hero and the anti-hero are facets in the same persona and cannot be separated, even when the harm is physical as in The Duel at Silver Creek.The local marshal, "Lightning" Tyrone (Stephen McNally), is also tracking the gang, but receives a crippling injury during a gunfight. Set in the town of Silver Creek, it seems like there's a lot that goes on beneath the surface all the time. The prettiest, Miss Domergue, not only dresses to the ears but, as one of the chief culprits, is not above garroting a wounded man to death. The plot is pretty basic and doesn't live up to the suggestions of the opening – instead becoming rather focused on the actions of a few characters.

I don't know what surprised me the most, a western directed by Don Siegel and such a clean one (in the sense it is not very gritty and it follows the plot points of most westerns of the 50's) or the fact that Lee Marvin once had hair which was not white.Faith Domergue was so striking and charismatic, it’s unfortunate that she never rose above B pictures. A gang of claim jumpers is infesting the territory, gaining ownership of undermanned mining operations through extortion. I know there hasn't been that many new releases during the pandemic, cinematic visits have been scarce, with cinemas closed for long periods of time and studios holding back films to make the most from their investment. The story takes an ominous twist after the Marshall meets the scheming girl Opal Lacy who has secret plans that aren't in the Marshall's best interest. Murphy is good but his character has less meat on it and he has therefore less to do that really sticks in the mind.