I avoided seeing this film during years because of the title which made me think it was a horror one like "Jesse James meets Frankenstein's daughter". Finally I saw it and liked it.
I just watched this film for the first time since 1958, and it's much better than I thought it was when I was a 12-year-old. It's fast-paced even at 101 minutes, more violent than I remembered, and consistently well played.
I must confess that I saw this movie an awful long time ago, when I was just a kid. However, it made a big impression on me and it blended genres in a way that I hadn't ever seen a film before.
Much of this film will seem familiar to anyone who's seen 1947's "Kiss of Death", which plotwise it closely resembles, and some of the theme music heard over the opening credits was borrowed from 1951's "The Day The Earth Stood Still". That having been said, however, this film has much to recommend it on its own.
There is a minor tradition of remaking crime movies for the Western genre."The Badlanders"is a retread of "The Asphalt Jungle"while "Colorado Territory"is a remake of "High Sierra".
I can never forget this film. Unlike some critics, me and my mates found Robert Evans' performance mesmerising.
I don't know what the producers had in mind, if anything, when they framed this Western. The title, "The Fiend Who Walked The West" sounds like a science fiction or horror movie.
