The Tin Star

Mann, Nichols, Fonda, Van Cleef and Perkins is some kind of dream team. It doesn't have the tension and wit of Mann's best (Winchester 73, The Man from Laramie) and some moments are bald-faced Shane ripoffs, but aside from those hiccups this is a very smart and progressive western. The treatment of indians is an interesting extension of the inhumanity of The Devil's Doorway.

Starts like the typical 50s western, cheesy music and all, but don't let that fool you - things soon get gritty. Ending is a bit of a letdown, but for a mainstream movie of the time it gets quite dark already. Really good acting all around, tension builds up right to the end, truly a classic of the genre.

The only western that's ever put me to sleep. I'm not sure how, with all the talents present, this turned out so average - the writing/characterizations are probably most to blame.

Mann's westerns have been all over the place for me and I wasn't really sold at the start. Sure Fonda is always going to get some leeway from me, but his intro felt a bit muddled and Perkins wasn't convincing me of anything. Still, it showed glimmers of something and slowly but surely it got better. It doesn't wow and the beats feel very conventional, but it executes things really well and the character growth from both Fonda and Perkins is remarkably effective.

Good work from all concerned, but the talky Dudley Nichols script lacks tension. Fonda, Perkins and McIntire are fine.

this relatively late work inexplicably feels like the early film of a director yet to fully fledge into his style, and the domestic stuff is a tad undercooked (while i adore betsy palmer, bates is the stealth love interest), but there's great skill and experience in the subtlety of the camera, the understanding of precisely how little to show and say, the way loneliness and rage seep in unnoticed. the bleak understatement extends to the set pieces: the doctor's demise is a career highlight.

Star Rating: ★★★★

Henry Fonda plays the bounty hunter changed by grief to perfection. His performance makes this movie a classic western.

This was just over 90 minutes but felt like it was about 3 hours. Every scene is so slow and boring. The climax gun fight at the end was awful and really anti-climatic. I thought this was going to be excellent based on the opening scene where Fonda brings a dead body into town to collect a bounty but it plummets from there. Perkins love story in this may be the most useless romance I've ever seen on film.

There's some great photography and a few good performances here. The script is very talky but a lot of it is very meditative.

Highly conventional, if nicely cast and shot.

how to build a sheriff from a boy!

It feels ahead of it's time, with a more thoughtful tone to a Western. Good performances help the plot over it's slower parts.