A classic noir revenge tale in cowboy hats, Andrew McLaglen’s Gun the Man Down stars James Arness as Rem Anderson, a morally complicated bank robber out for revenge on the partners and girlfriend who left him to die and took off with the loot. With Rem writhing in pain from a gunshot wound, fellow robbers Matt Rankin (Robert Wilke) and Ralph Farley (Don Megowan) abandoned him in order to escape a fast approaching posse; they even forced Rem’s gal Janice (Angie Dickinson in her film debut) to join them and forget her dreams of starting a respectable life with Rem (“You’re the only clean thing that ever happened to me”). After a stint in prison, Rem seeks out his deserters, ultimately finding them running a sleazy saloon in an otherwise quaint town where he takes a hotel room to plot his next moves. The film boasts nothing fancy; indeed, its appeal lies in the simplicity of its tale and the quietude of its settings. For example, as the hitman methodically and patiently pursues Rem outside, cross-cut with close-ups of nervous, sweaty faces inside the saloon (perhaps the film’s most shining sequence), barely a word is spoken. In typical noir fashion, there are no happy endings for anyone here, but, unexpectedly for noir, by the end the protagonist admits to learning a moral lesson.