Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

dougdoepke Hayden made a number of cheap Westerns at a time (late '50's) when Drive-in's were a booming business and in need of fare. Unfortunately, none are very good, including this one, though a number of talented people were involved in each. As could be expected, most suffered from poor production values and sub-standard scripts, leaving the talent little to work with. That's very much the case here. As others point out, only Van Cleef looks motivated. And too bad that great bad girl Mary Beth Hughes (Cleo) is not given more to work with. No need to repeat negative points made by others, except for two observations. Note that the film has two directors listed. According to IMDb, this was Franklin's only directorial effort, which suggests producer Hittleman didn't like what he saw and so took over the directing himself. Thus the film lacks an experienced director's hand. Also, the ending is indeed startling for a picture of this type. It's so abrupt and unexpected, it's almost like the company suddenly ran out of film and had to wrap up immediately. Certainly, nothing else in the production shows the kind of imagination or nerve that would produce such a startling break with convention. Too bad this remains the only good reason to stick around for this surf-to-turf oater.

zardoz-13 You know that a western—or any movie for that matter—is in trouble when its title has nothing whatsoever to do with its storyline. "Gun Battle at Monterey" qualifies as an uneven, below-average oater about revenge that never delivers its titular fireworks. Ostensibly, this low-budget, black & white, Allied Artists' western turns out to be a lesson in good citizenship. You see, the hero changes his mind in the end about the fate of a two-timing outlaw because his pretty girlfriend persuades him not to sink to the outlaw's level. Not only is "Gun Battle at Monterey" unconvincing in its reversal ending, but also co-directors Sidney Franklin, Jr., and Carl K. Hittleman of the abysmal "Kentucky Rifle" leave out important scenes that would have bolstered the quality of their western. Sterling Hayden, Ted de Corsia, and Lee Van Cleef deserved a better script than the one that Jack ("The Narrow Margin") Leonard and TV western scribe Lawrence Resner contrived.This lackluster western opens with bearded Max Reno (Ted de Corsia of "Captain Pirate") and Jay Turner (Sterling Hayden of "Top Gun") riding off the beaten trail down onto the beach at Monterey to hide out in a cave with the loot that they have stolen from the Monterey Express Company. Incredibly, we never learn how much they hauled off from the hold-up. Reno boasts about his foresight in having found the cave a month before the robbery. Nevertheless, Jay isn't impressed by Reno. According to the Leonard & Resner screenplay, Max met a penniless Turner in Monterey and offered him $5-thousand dollars to help him rob the express company. Early on directors Franklin and Hittleman establish Jay as a decent sort of fellow who strayed onto the wrong side of the law through circumstances not entirely of his own making. When Jay demands his money and refuses later to stick on as Max's partner, Max puts three bullets in his back. Jay plunges into the ocean and washes up on the beach long after Max has hightailed it with the loot to greater pastures. A Mexican girl, Maria Salvador (seasoned television actress Pamela Duncan), takes pity on poor bullet-riddled Jay and nurses him back to health despite her father's fears about Jay. Meanwhile, Monterey authorities find Jay's vest with two bullet holes in it on the beach (yes, the two bullet holes don't match the three shots fired) and they add murder to Max's robbery charge.Four weeks or thereabouts elapse before Jay recuperates sufficiently to hit the trail after Max, and it takes our determined protagonist around a year to locate the double-crossing dastard. During that time, Max has done well for himself. He rides into Del Ray and wins ownership of a saloon when its proprietor, Abbot (Fred Sherman of "The Left-Handed Gun"),cannot pay off his gambling losses. Reluctantly, Abbot agrees to take Max on as a partner, but they quarrel over importing dancehall girls. Abbot complains that he won't lower his standards. Abbot's right-hand gunman, Kirby (Lee Van Cleef of "Barquero"), stands by and watches Max badger Abbot into a gunfight. The town sheriff Claude Mundy (Charles Cane of "No Name on a Bullet") accepts Max's plea that he shot Abbot down in self-defense. By the time that Jay rides into Del Ray masquerading as somebody else entirely, Max has the town in his hip pocket. Max is initially suspicious when Jay appears and takes sides with the downtrodden citizens, especially a crusading journalist that Kirby had earlier beaten up. Max sends one of his girls, Cleo (Mary Beth Hughes of "Design for Scandal"), to see if she can root the truth out about Jay. Eventually, Jay beats up Kirby and throws him in the hoosegow. The honest citizens of Del Ray hire him as their deputy sheriff but are shocked when he refuses to let them lynch Max. Instead, Jay takes Max back to Monterey to pick up the reward on him, and watch him hang for his murder. Nobody ever got a solid description of Jay during the robbery so he can ride confidently into town and turn Max over to law without any worry. The interval between the time that they leave Del Ray and reach Monterey is a pre-journey of hardship in the tradition of Sergio Leone's later "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Finally, once Jay has turned in Max, he rides back to Maria. She convinces him that he is doing the wrong thing, so he goes back to town and gives himself up. Maria assured him that she would wait for him. Max roars with laughter at Jay's decision to turn himself in and forgives him for his deception. Angrily, Jay punches out Max and the movie ends."Gun Battle at Monterey" suffers from the use of obvious back projection that undercuts a romantic scene on the beach between Jay and Maria. Presumably, the thunderous sounds of the tide crashing on the shore must have drowned out every attempt to record the dialogue on the location, so the filmmakers repaired to the quiet confines of the studio. When Franklin and Hittleman venture out onto the actual desert or beach locations, this oater looks both scenic and rugged. Unfortunately, the villains aren't much of a challenge as Jay gets all too easily out of a scrape with two gunman who have him digging his own grave. This otherwise disposable 69-minute western earns some points for its scenes along the Monterey beach that anticipated similar scenes in Marlon Brando's later revenge western "One-Eyed Jacks." Lee Van Cleef gives a persuasively pugnacious performance as Max's right-hand gunman, while Ted de Corsia is given enough evil things to do to qualify as a thorough-going villain.

Kent Rasmussen This film has a script so terrible that I reluctantly sat through the entire thing (which is mercifully brief) merely to see how it would play out.SPOILERS ABOUND!The film opens with a shot of a manzanita pine overlooking the ocean that immediately establishes the Monterey, California setting and calls to mind the 1961 Marlon Brando film ONE-EYED JACKS, a film with a very similar storyline that was also set near Monterey. We then see Jay Turner (Sterling Hayden) and Max Reno (Ted de Corsia) riding horses along the surf and learn they are fleeing from a robbery. They go into a cave that Reno calls a perfect hideout. Presumably the entrance to the cave is hidden when the tide is up. However, anyone looking for the men shouldn't have too much trouble finding their horses outside. Morever, Turner builds a fire inside the cave. Don't they worry about the smoke giving them away? (For my part, I'd worry about being drowned inside the cave during high tide.)The men talk and we learn that they've only recently met. They are very different types: Turner is satisfied with the $5,000 he's getting from the heist and wants to give up crime, but Reno wants to continue their partnership and is miffed by Turner's retirement. When Turner goes out to the surf to get a pot of water (What's the water for? Is he intending to use seawater for coffee?) Reno follows him and shoots him in the back. He then takes both horses and flees. This scene stunned me. Why didn't Reno shoot Turner inside the cave, where he could have retrieved the $5,000 and left Turner's body better hidden? Since he seemed not to have retried the money, what was the point of shooting Turner?The next ONE-EYED JACKS element in the film is the appearance of a beautiful young Mexican woman, Maria Salvador (Pamela Duncan), who likes hanging out at the beach alone. Maria drags Turner out of the surf and somehow gets him to her home, where she nurses him back to health. Predictably, Maria and Turner fall in love. Turner is mellowing but is also obsessed with tracking Reno down and returning him to Monterey, where he can be hanged for murder (i.e., murdering Turner). Maria disapproves, but Turner leaves, vowing to return.Meanwhile, Max Reno manages to set himself up nicely, under his own name, in a town called Delrey. It wasn't clear where Delrey is, but it seems to be in or near Texas. A long way from Monterey, California, but it makes some sense, as Reno doesn't appear to be worried about being caught by the law.We first see Reno when he is playing cards in a saloon and winning big. He's obviously cheating, and even the sheriff suggests as much, but he nevertheless wins a huge amount from the saloon's owner. (Would a real saloon owner ever play a complete stranger in a high-stakes poker game?) In a back-room scene, the saloon owner signs over half-interest in his place to Reno, who happens to have a ready-to-sign contract in his jacket pocket. Reno then shoots the man dead and gets away with claiming that the man drew on him. Playing a primitive version of DEADWOOD's Al Swearengen, Reno transforms the formerly tame Delrey saloon into a happening place with fast women, a piano player, and dishonest card dealers.If Delrey really is in Texas, it's a mystery how Turner finds the place, but he does. He makes a dramatic entrance in Reno's saloon and confidently pretends to be "John York" from El Paso when Reno confronts him. It's been a year since Reno has seen Turner, and he never knew Turner well to begin with, so he's not completely sure that York is Turner. He tries a few lame schemes to discover York's true identity. If Reno were Swearengen, he'd simply have York killed to be on the safe side. Eventually, he tries to do just that, but his schemes backfire. Turner ends up as deputy sheriff. Then, as acting sheriff, Turner saves Reno from a lynch mob and takes him back to Monterey. After Turner and Reno leave town, there is a curious sequence in which it becomes unclear what Turner's intentions are. Is he really taking Reno back to Monterey? Does he plan to kill Reno himself? Is he reverting to crime, with Reno as his partner? The answer is (a), and Turner delivers Reno to Monterey sheriff. He then rides back to the beach where he first encountered Maria and finds her pottering around the surf. They fall into each other's arms, but Maria is upset to learn what Turner has done to Reno. Despite the fact that Reno shot Turner in the back and later made several more attempts to have him killed, Maria thinks it wrong to have Reno tried for a murder that didn't take place. Seems like nitpicking, if you ask me. Turner asks Maria if she will love him, no matter what. She says yes, and we next see Turner being put in the same jail cell with Reno.Talk about a movie that doesn't deliver ... there is NO gun battle at Monterey! However, one of the film's few strengths is its ambiguous ending. I expected to see a scene in which Turner is let off the hook for being reformed, but that doesn't happen either. Instead, Reno welcomes Turner into his cell with open arms, forgives him "for everything that you've done to me." The film ends with Turner punching Reno out, as the credits begin to roll. Considering how heavy-handed everything in the script has subtle note. Will Is Turner be prosecuted? Will Reno be hanged? We can only guess. Meanwhile, I wouldn't be surprised if the naive Maria goes back to the beach to pick up more men.

Terence Allen This movie wastes the talents of Sterling Hayden (who obviously made this movie to fund his famous off-screen pursuits) and Ted de Corsia, who was a great Western villain. A movie about two bank robbers who escape, but one Reno, played by de Corsia, betrays and shoots Hayden's character. Hayden's character is rescued, recovers, and seeks vengeance. It was cheaply made in the coastal California area, and has beautiful scenery, but the script is horrible, and wastes the talents of everyone involved, including Lee Van Cleef, who is an additionally villain. This is a grade-Z Western. Don't watch unless you want a laugh.