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Rage at Dawn
USA 1955
produced by Nat Holt for RKO
directed by Tim Whelan
starring Randolph Scott, Forrest Tucker, Mala Powers, J. Carrol Naish, Edgar Buchanan, Myron Healey, Howard Petrie, Ray Teal, William Forrest, Denver Pyle, Trevor Bardette, Kenneth Tobey, Richard Garland, Chubby Johnson, Arthur Space, Phil Chambers, Jack Jordan, Henry Wills, Jimmy Lydon, Ralph Moody, Dennis Moore, William Phipps, Guy Prescott, Mike Ragan, George Wallace, Dan White
story by Frank Gruber, screenplay by Horace McCoy, music by Paul Sawtell
Reno Gang
review by Mike Haberfelner
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The Midwest, 1866: The Reno Brothers, led by Frank (Forrest Tucker)
have been terrorizing the countryside for some time now, and went
unpunished because in Seymour, Indiana, their town of residence, the judge
(Edgar Buchanan), the prosecutor (Howard Petrie) and the Sheriff (Ray
Teal) are all on their payroll - and it's pretty good business, too, as
they're usually going for the big bucks. This is frustrating enough for a
special agent, Barlow (Randolph Scott), being sent to Seymour to
infiltrate the gang. And to properly introduce him, a trainrobbery with
him as the perpetrator is staged, then he spends some of the money from
the train in Seymour - which almost immediately gets the Sheriff on his
trail, and through him, the prosecutor and the judge he gets in touch with
the Renos ... oh, and also through Laura Reno (Mala Powers), innocent
sister of the brothers, whom he has a personal interest in, and she soon
develops feelings for him as well. The Renos test Barlow in a bank
robbery, and he does good - even if Laura's mighty disappointed in him
when she finds out. Then he persuades the brothers to hold up a train -
and of course it's a trap as he has law enforcers from all over the state
sent in, and ultimately the Renos, their gang, and also their backers on
the side of the law in Seymour are captured and incarcerated. A
spontaneous mob forms to string up the brothers, and while Barlow now
tries to save their lives he's only one against many and has to witness
them hang. He still gets the girl in the end. As of 2021, this
is one of only two feature films about the notorious Reno gang (the other
being the following year's Love Me Tender), and it sure takes its
liberties with the material and seems to be more interested in equipping
the story with a hero that never was than focussing on its more
interesting details - like that the gang were the first post-Civil War
trainrobbers and fell victim of not one but three separate lynchings. That
said, Randolph Scott makes a good (if fictional) hero, even if his romance
with Mala Powers seems a bit creepy, what with him being more than 30
years her senior, the film is solidly told, and some individual scenes
(like the lynchings that are not actually shown but mirrored in the
shocked face of Randolph Scott) really pack a punch. But solid as it may
be, the film is hardly great, for one the whole romantic subplot does
nothing to drive the main story, the judge, prosecutor and Sheriff as the
brothers backers would have made for a great bit of satire but is dropped
all too soon, the decisive train robbery-cum-shoot-out comes all too soon,
lacking proper build-up, while the lynch mob element comes out of nowhere
in the third act, the rage of the general public just lacks any base
inside the film. It's still solid genre entertainment, just not especially
great.
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