Best of the Badmen

Best of the Badmen
Film poster
Directed by	William D. Russell
Written by	Robert Hardy Andrews
Screenplay by	John Twist
Produced by	Samuel Bischoff
Starring	Robert Ryan Claire Trevor Jack Buetel Walter Brennan Lawrence Tierney
Cinematography	Edward Cronjager
Edited by	Desmond Marquette
Music by	Paul Sawtell
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date	June 9, 1951 (1951-06-09)[1]
Running time	84 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Best of the Badmen is a 1951 Western film directed by William D. Russell that is set in Breckenridge Missouri during the post-American Civil War period. It stars Robert Ryan, Claire Trevor and Robert Preston. It was a loose follow-up to Return of the Bad Men (1948).

Plot

The plot centres around the James-Younger Gang and their activities.

Jeff Clanton, an Army major from Missouri, captures the survivors of the Confederacy's Quantrill's Raiders and convinces them to give themselves up and pledge their allegiance to the Union. Clanton pledges that they will be paroled, but Matthew Fowler, a carpetbagger who owns a powerful detective agency, is determined to arrest them for the reward. When one of Fowler's deputies wounds one of the captives, return fire kills the deputy. Clanton is unjustly arrested for murdering Fowler's deputy. Clanton is tried by a kangaroo court and sentenced to be hanged the following morning. He escapes that night and then leads the band of outlaws including Jesse James and the Younger brothers in a vendetta against Matthew Fowler's detective agency.

Cast

• Robert Ryan as Jeff Clanton
• Claire Trevor as Lily
• Jack Buetel as Bob Younger
• Robert Preston as Matthew Fowler
• Walter Brennan as 'Doc' Butcher
• Bruce Cabot as Cole Younger
• John Archer as Curley Ringo
• Lawrence Tierney as Jesse James
• Barton MacLane as Joad
• Tom Tyler as Frank James
• Robert J. Wilke as Jim Younger
• John Cliff as John Younger
• Lee MacGregor as Lieutenant Blaine
• Emmett Lynn as Oscar
• Carleton Young as Wilson

Production

Parts of the film were shot in Paria, Johnson Canyon, Strawberry Valley, the Gap, and Kanab Canyon in Utah.^[2]

References

1. "Best of the Badmen: Detail View". American Film Institute. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
2. D'Arc, James V. (2010). When Hollywood came to town: a history of moviemaking in Utah (1st ed.). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. ISBN 9781423605874.

External links

• Best of the Badmen at IMDb
• Best of the Badmen at the TCM Movie Database
• Best of the Badmen at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films