Gutsycurene
Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
Marva-nova
Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
Isbel
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
mark.waltz
Way too many familiar faces, plotlines, plot twists, graveyard plots and potholes on the streets of this Rio Grande River locale. John Payne takes the opportunity after the end of the civil war to move out west from Savannah and finds himself in trouble with the law while fighting against the corruption. This Pine/Thomas western, beautifully filmed in color, has the potential of being a great saga of settling and civilizing, but overstuffs everything like a 10 layer burrito. When the plot is set up with a pretty stagecoach con-artist Mary Beth Hughes hoodwinking the passengers, the predicted plot goes nowhere and her character simply vanishes until an appearance at the end. For romance, there's pretty Gail Russell; for conflict, Sterling Hayden, and for the bulk of the laughs, George "Gabby" Hayes. The white folks live peacefully among the Spanish folk, joining in their fiestas and picking up their culture. There's hardly any racial tension, just the fights for justice between the good guys and bad guys. It is impressively filmed, but for a good majority of this 100 minute film, I pondered the basic plot, and could only come up with a simple story with a bunch of conflicts, and nothing to really tie them together. There's a touching cameo by the ancient H.B. Warner as Payne's worried grandfather, and a shootout amongst a giant windstorm, but those are "moments". The lack of a continuity factor is the nail in the coffin of this not bad but obviously missed opportunity western
Spikeopath
El Paso is directed by Lewis R. Foster and Foster also adapts the screenplay from a story written by J. Robert Bren and Gladys Atwater. It stars John Payne, Gail Russell, Sterling Hayden, George 'Gabby' Hayes, Dick Foran, Eduardo Noriega, Henry Hull and Mary Beth Hughes. Music is by Darrell Calker and cinematography by Ellis W. Carter. Location filming is at the Iverson and Corrigan Ranches and El Paso and Gallup. El Paso, and lawyer and ex-Confederate captain Clay Fletcher (Payne) is forced to go against his principles and go outside the law to bring order to the town. It's a town where the judge is alcoholic and manipulated by the corrupt sheriff and a nefarious landowner.In the mix here is a very decent film, and certainly there's a story that if given a bit more meat could have been most potent. Unfortunately it's a bit choppy in its telling and execution, while the Cinecolor it was shot in looks washed out and cheapens still further what was already a picture being made without a big budget.Thematically it's strong, there's a vigilante thread that's attention grabbing, with some nice suggestive shots used by the director, and a theme of ex-soldiers returning from the war - only to find their land and rights being vanquished by the self imposed powers that be - carries with it some pertinent sting. There's also some good humour in here, notably a running gag involving Hughes' Stagecoach Nellie.Cast are fine, with Hayden and Payne fronting up for their fans, Hayes does another grand grizzled old coot turn, and Noriega, in spite of being under used, is excellent. Crude back projection work undermines some half decent action sequences, whilst the extended shoot-out finale is nicely played out during a dust storm - which may be to hide some flaws in the production? But regardless it has good effect.Frustrating picture for sure, but for Western die-hards there's enough here to enjoy and not feel angry about. 6.5/10
alexandre michel liberman (tmwest)
I decided to see this film, after reading that it was part of Martin Scorsese's list of top westerns. John Payne is Clay Fletcher, a lawyer that goes to El Paso where he meets his former sweetheart Susan (Gail Russel) and her father Henry (Henry Hull) who is a judge, but became a drunkard and is subservient to Bert Donner (Sterling Hayden) who is trying to get for free all the nearby land of the ex confederate soldiers that fought in the civil war which has just finished.. Fletcher tries all he can in a peaceful way, but when he realizes he will not win against the dirty tactics of Donner, forms and leads a guerrilla group. The film tries to show that he is wrong, that he must respect the law, but does so in a hurried manner in the last part and that spoils the film which could have been a good western. The unconvincing, not elaborated rapid change of attitude of Payne and the members of the guerrilla group just makes you think they had to finish the film in a set time , and got carried away and let it go on too long, and then had to hurry to end it. The presence of Gail Russel who was an excellent actress and a great beauty is a positive factor.
bkoganbing
I think El Paso started out to be a much more ambitious western than it eventually turned out. There was a lot more potential there than for what did eventually make it to the screen.Except for a short subject he did at Warner Brothers in 1939 El Paso was the first western that John Payne did and he definitely seemed comfortable in the genre. He plays a lawyer and former Confederate veteran who goes west to El Paso from Charleston, South Carolina in search of an old friend of Payne's grandfather H.B. Warner.That friend is Henry Hull who went west with his daughter Gail Russell for health reasons and is now a drunken pawn of town boss Sterling Hayden. With Hull as judge and sheriff Dick Foran to enforce some trumped up foreclosures, Hayden's grabbing all the real estate he can in and around El Paso from veterans who were not paying taxes while they were fighting in the Civil War. Payne tries it the legal way, but he's learned a few things as well in those war years. When it doesn't work he finds himself leader of a guerrilla band who are exacting justice after a couple of murders of cast members sympathetic to Payne.Editing was pretty botched in El Paso. There are references during the film to scenes that were obviously cut out. The film also seemed to be building to a terrific climax and the end was quite a let down. You'll see what I mean if you view the film.El Paso was produced by Pine-Thomas Productions, two guys with the first name of William. William Pine was Cecil B. DeMille's associate producer on several of his earlier epics from the Thirties and I think he was expecting a DeMille like budget and didn't get it. So cuts were made that I think spoiled the overall quality of the film.Still fans of the western and of John Payne will like it. Note the comic relief performances of Mary Beth Hughes as Stagecoach Nell and Gabby Hayes for once an Easterner in a western.
