Buchanan Rides Alone

_**A rare clunker from the Boetticher/Scott team**_ A mirthful gunman from West Texas (Randolph Scott) wanders into a border town in SoCal where feuding family members run the town (Barry Kelley, Tol Avery and Peter Whitney) and threaten to string him up for accessory to murder. Craig Stevens, Manuel Rojas and L.Q. Jones are also on hand. "Buchanan Rides Alone" (1958) is one of five Westerns from 1956-1960 written by Burt Kennedy, directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott. The others are: “7 Men from now,” “The Tall T,” “Ride Lonesome” and “Comanche Station.” Two additional films omit writer Kennedy from the equation: “Decision at Sundown” and “Westbound.” A little cult has formed around these Westerns and most are first-rate despite some not having the biggest budgets. I’ve seen four of ’em and like them all, except this one. It’s based on the first book of the Buchanan paperback series, started by Jonas Ward (aka William Ard) and continued by other authors after his death. Buchanan in print is a happy-go-lucky wanderer in the Old West with a tongue-and-cheek tone. The movie starts off entertaining enough with Scott jovial and confident in a decidedly unfriendly Southwestern town, but the second half devolves into tedious writing with absurd back-and-forth storytelling (he’s captured; he escapes; he’s captured; he escapes), not to mention at least one glaring plot hole in a life-or-death situation. Jennifer Holden is notable as the lone female, but little is done with her presence. This is a one-dimensional dude flick through and through. It’s not all bad. Like I said, the first half works well enough, there are some amusing scenes/lines, most of the cast is good, the music’s great, and the Arizona locations with saguaro cacti are fine. The bad writing sinks it, however. Kennedy wrote the script based on Ward’s book, but it was lost in translation. The film runs 1 hour, 19 minutes, and was shot in Old Tucson, Arizona, and wilderness parts nearby. GRADE: C-