Warlock

Tired of outlaws running the town, the citizens hire a gunman to impose order for a fee: Clay Blaisedell, and with him his lame friend Tom Morgan. He does the job, and the town starts being afraid of him instead. At the same time a former member of the gang pins on a deputy's star, and two kinds of authority face each other. Edward Dmytryk runs an argument about legality inside the western form: if you buy order, who supervises it. Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark and Anthony Quinn are the film's strength, particularly Quinn's Morgan, whose attachment to Blaisedell is the most complicated relationship in it. The widescreen and the colour are above the standard of the period. Who it is for: viewers who like fifties psychological westerns. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clean division of good and bad, which the film deliberately muddies.