Very Cool!!!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

In the first five minutes it is obvious that this film was made to be shown in 3-D. Objects are thrown directly at the camera to the point of distraction. Guns are pointed directly at the viewer.The movie is a B-grade western about robbing stagecoaches. The cast is headed by Randolph Scott (THE TALL T) and Claire Trevor (STAGECOACH), and also features George Macready (GILDA), Ernest Borgnine (BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK), and Lee Marvin (THE DIRTY DOZEN). Alfonso Bedoya (THE BIG COUNTRY) plays a rival Mexican bandit, cheerfully stumbling through his English lines. The acting is second-rate outside of the seasoned pros and the familiar story is not aided by clumsy action scenes and the annoying 3-D gimmick.It is amusing, though, to see some of the techniques used to enhance the 3-D experience. Sure, every loose object within arm's reach is picked up and hurled at the camera by hot-tempered cowboys. But there are also chase scenes that are rear-projected and filmed with rocks in the foreground (in front of the rear-projection screen) to simulate a sense of depth and perspective. The background image is very blurry, with the rocks in clear focus.In the story, Scott works as an inside man for gold robberies. But when things go too far, he decides he's playing for the wrong team, angering his boss. Macready leads the bandits, with Marvin and Borgnine as his trusty muscle. Bedoya is Macready's rival, and Scott plays the two against each other. Run-of-the-mill Western stuff.

Randolph Scott plays a man who worked, briefly, for Quantrell and his evil raiders during the Civil War. However, Quantrell's actions (he was more a terrorist and thief than a real soldier) soon disenchanted him and he left to serve in the regular Southern army. Soon the war ends and Scott is hated for his war record and people don't want to give him a chance. After nearly being killed by a mob on a riverboat, he decides to head west and lands in the middle of a terrible town run by cut-throats. Eventually, Scott gets rid of some of the baddies and makes it a nicer place to live.I am a huge fan of the westerns of Randolph Scott and have seen several dozen of them. In general, his later ones made from about 1956-1962 are the best and this film comes from his more inconsistent period. While this is not among the very worst of this period, it is not a particularly good film for a variety of reasons.The biggest problem is that Scott's character never made much sense and it seemed as if the writers really had no idea where the story was going. It just seemed that his character wasn't sure if he was good or evil or anything in the middle. You just had no idea what his plan, if any, was and by the time the film was over, you just felt a bit disappointed in the whole thing.In addition, there were some other serious problems. While this is a relatively common problem in Scott films, the stunt doubles were just awful. In particular, the guy who doubled for Ernest Borgnine looked nothing like him and it was VERY obvious that is wasn't him in the fight scenes---very, very obvious--almost comically obvious! The other problem is that originally this was a 3-D movie and the 3-D direction was about as subtle as a 2x4 upside your head. Way too many times the characters tossed things towards the camera or pretended to be punching the camera. A little of this might have worked great, but as much as they did made it look like a "cheese-fest"!! The Three Stooges' 3-D short was more subtle than this!! My advice is unless you are the most rabid and die-hard fan, skip this one or save it for after you've seen his later work. Otherwise, you'll get the impression that his films are pretty ordinary--which is not really the case.

There are quite a few surprises in this film. First of all, it keeps you guessing especially as regards Randolph Scott's character, whose motivation is difficult to discern. It's hard to tell if he's a bad guy or a good guy sometimes, as he manipulates two different gangs of unsavory characters. This does not anticipate Yojimbo or A Fisftful of Dollars. Both of those films, plus this film, all derive somewhat from The Glass Key, which was filmed twice before The Stranger Wore A Gun was released in 1953. (In 1935 with George Raft and 1942 with Alan Ladd.)Those films were based on Dashiell Hammett's novel of 1931. In any case, this film has its own tale to tell, and the performances of Scott, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine are solid. The film suffers somewhat from the 3-D effects which are kind of lame in the 2-D format we have to suffer on our TV sets. People who don't remember the 3-D craze will probably think the director was weird. All in all, the film's offbeat style and great ensemble cast make this well worth watching a time or two. It is by no means an ordinary run-of-the-mill Western.

Randolph Scott plays Jeff Travis, who worked as a spy during the Civil War for the lawless Quantrill's Raiders. One of the last jobs Travis took part in resulted in innocent victims being slaughtered. Travis leaves Quantrill and heads west to Arizona, where he takes a job spying for a stage company trying to protect their gold shipments. In reality the stranger with gun savvy is working with a strong willed loyalist(George Macready) to the Confederation trying to discover where scads of gold is being hid.Scott is his typical stoic self and has strong support from the alluring Claire Trevor and Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Joan Weldon and Alfonso Bedoya.