Duel At Silver Creek [DVD]

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Participating in the proceedings are Faith Domergue, Susan Cabot and Eugene Iglesias, who gives the film's best performance. A gang of claim jumpers are forcing the owners to sign their claims over to them but then kill them anyway. 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. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book.

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. Though it does suffer from the bevy of clichés befitting for one of its genre in 1952, The Duel at Silver Creek is pretty satisfying for things you know you want to see in a Siegel feature (B-movie efficiency, surprising violence, straight-up cool noir vibes) but also some things you might not expect (a femme fetale, brilliant tracking shots, and terrific costumes). The tropes and structure that he's working with here are certainly very conventional since it looks, acts, and is executed like a pretty typical Western of the classic variety. During the climactic gunfight where rider Rod Lacy is himself chased on horseback by the marshal and both then dismount to continue shooting at each other, Lacy astonishingly manages to fire 11 shots from what is clearly a revolver pistol (which normally fires only 6) before an attempted 12th shot reveals it to be out of ammunition, and only then is Lacy forced to reload it - he is out of frame briefly whilst on his galloping horse (the camera cuts to the chasing marshal) but could not have conceivably re-loaded during that very short time, and at no point throughout is he shown to be carrying 2 guns.

The screen play written by Gerald Drayson Adams and Joseph Hoffman familiarly stacks the motivations and incidents and, unfortunately, blunts some picaresque possibilities. We hear his narration of the case of a gang of claim-jumpers led by Gerald Mohr as Rod Lacy, Opal's slimy brother.

Photos are provided courtesy of the AMRF and may not be reproduced or copied for commercial purposes without permission of the copyright owner.The plot is basic but enjoyable with plenty of likable characters who are as bright as the Technicolor they are presented in. Alone with McNally, Domergue vamps him into forgetting his job…In a sense, McNally’s gun had abandons him by becoming lame after an injury, leaving him more open to assault. More Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. Audie Murphy is the main star as the Silver Kid, two six-guns and black leather vest, while Faith Domergue plays Opal Lacy, a sexy cold-blooded killer. Murphy is good but his character has less meat on it and he has therefore less to do that really sticks in the mind.

Don Siegel's cool western bubbles over with action while there's a lot of stuff you can read into it that's hidden between the lines. At just 77 minutes long, The Duel at Silver Creek is hardly the lengthiest Western ever made yet Don Siegel is still able to pack into it a lot of action in his first outing in the genre. 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.

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.