Last Train from Gun Hill

Combining key narrative elements from 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and The Bravados (1958), John Sturges’ Last Train from Gun Hill is a powerful revenge western that projects a film noir ethos despite taking place among just a handful of characters in a single tiny town. After his native American wife is raped and murdered by two local men just for kicks, U.S. Marshal Matt Morgan (Kirk Douglas) tracks the evidence to Rick Belden (Earl Holliman), the son of his old friend Craig Belden (Anthony Quinn), who immediately becomes paternally defensive despite knowing that Rick is guilty. (This is the second film released in 1959 in which Holliman plays a useless, morally bankrupt son – see The Trap.) When Morgan kidnaps Rick and holes up in the local hotel, tensions escalate and the body count rises. Carolyn Jones plays the lovely Linda, who possesses a protective instinct toward Morgan (“You have a heart as big as a house and a brain the size of a pea”) and is forced to pick a side.