zardoz-13 The Universal International Pictures release "Six Black Horses" is a predictable, low-budget, but entertaining horse opera with Audie Murphy, Joan O'Brien, and Dan Duryea. Harry Keller directed this largely standard-issue sagebrusher with an even, assured hand. This 80-minute Murphy vehicle was his last western. He got his start helming westerns, and he helmed "Seven Ways to Sundown" (1960) with Murphy. Keller keeps the action moving along at an amiable gait between bouts of expository dialogue. Our two heroes encounter savage Indians, bushwhacking sidewinders, and a deceiving dame. Nothing truly surprising happens, but the two lead characters make an interesting combo, and they encounter their share of tribulation. "Seven Men From Now" scenarist Burt Kennedy's screenplay features masculine dialogue enhanced by the mysterious heroine's agenda. As other reviewers have complained, Kennedy recycles scenes from "Ride Lonesome and anticipates a cockfighting scene in "Return of the Seven." Ben Lane (Audie Murphy of "Hell Bent for Leather") and Frank Jesse (Dan Duryea of "Winchester '73") join forces not long after the opening credits. Duryea delivers another of his charmingly roguish performances as a sympathetic bad guy. Set afoot by a lame horse, Ben trudges through the wilderness, toting his saddle, and spots a string of horse. He ropes himself a horse and learns to his chagrin later that the string of horses belong to a Mustanger (Roy Barcroft of "Arizona Manhunt") and his cohorts. Poor Ben winds up with his head in a noose when Frank intervenes on his behalf. Our heroes meet an enigmatic woman, Kelly (Joan O'Brien of "Operation Petticoat"), who offers them $500 a piece to escort her back to her husband in Santa Rita del Cobre. Before long we learn that Kelly wants to see Frank dead because he killed her husband. During an Indian attack, she comes close to shooting Frank, but a spear her in the shoulder complicates things for the lady. This is the kind of western where the action takes place on the trail. Inevitably, Ben and Frank have a falling out and slap leather. Despite Kennedy's derivative screenplay, "Six Black Horses" qualifies an enjoyable frontier tale that doesn't wear out its welcome.

classicsoncall The film had me curious about the title for a while since Audie Murphy's character tries to lasso a wild bronco in the opening minutes and it's one of six that's roaming across the scrub desert where Ben Lane lost his. I didn't see how that event was going to work it's way into the picture, but later on, Dan Duryea comes up with the line in my summary quote describing how he'd like to be buried when his time comes - drawn in a carriage with six black horses.Now that I've had some time to think about the story, I'm left puzzled by a number of things. The main one is why Miss Kelly (Joan O'Brien) went to the trouble of hiring the pair of saddle tramps to escort her across Indian territory after the initial failed attempt to kill Frank Jesse (Duryea) in Perdido. She exposed herself to an awful lot of danger just to get revenge on the man who killed her husband. In fact, didn't it look like she pulled up her own horse during the chase scene with the Coyoteros? She would have been a goner except that it was too early to end the picture just yet.And what's with the pampered pooch? I'm sorry, but seeing the nameless mutt riding his own horse throughout the picture just seemed comical to me, especially during that same chase scene. He must have been strapped in pretty well not to get bumped off, but why not let the dog run around on his own? That one really left me baffled.So I guess if you don't think about these things too much, the film is passable enough with decent action and surprisingly good cinematography. In his late thirties, Audie Murphy looks like he outgrew the baby face look he had in pictures of a decade earlier when casting him as a villain didn't quite seem to work. Dan Duryea creates enough empathy for his character that you kind of wish the two wouldn't have to draw down on each other once the end game is revealed. The way in which Ben Lane and Miss Kelly come together seemed like a bit of stretch for me as well, but if the hero was going to ride off into the sunset with his girl, they had to work it out somehow. As for Frank Jesse, he got those six black horses after all.

clicketware Great western, I enjoyed Audie Murphy's performance.At 38 minutes into the movie there is a story told by Frank about a past love in Bisbee who he later discovered was married to another man. He says it taught him a lesson, "Always check the brand to make sure you are not driving another man's stock". That same story is told 50 minutes into Fort Dobbs (1958) by Clett (Brian Keith) and he says "Always check the brand first and that way you'll know if you are running somebody else's' stock".Burt Kennedy (story)was a writer in both movies so he got a lot of use of this tale!

Robin Moss "Six Black Horses" is a mild and mediocre western with only one real point of interest. Burt Kennedy's screenplay plagiarises his own screenplay for "Ride Lonesome"! Not only does Kennedy re-use some of the plot points - the redskins offering to trade a horse for the lushly feminine white woman/the sudden race across flat lands to a refuge just over the ridge - but also recycles some of his dialogue: "Some things a man just can't ride around" /"just thinking about it gives me a shiver deep down inside"/"a man needs a reason to ride this country". Like "Ride Lonesome" and several other westerns written by Kennedy, "Six Black Horses" is a journey movie. A woman (Joan O'Brien) offers two saddle-sore drifters who are adept with guns (Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea) a thousand dollars each to escort her across Indian territory. Predictably, they encounter various dangers and, sadly, everything is resolved predictably.There is nothing special about "Six Black Horses". Most of the situations and relationships are tired clichés, and none is depicted with any originality or imagination. Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea were old hands at this sort of thing in 1962, and they do not put a foot wrong. Joan O'Brien is more interesting, partly because she was an extremely attractive woman, even by movie star standards, and partly because her role carries some mystery. It is regrettable that her movie career did not prosper for longer.If the gun fights had been expertly choreographed by a directer who knew how to do it (like John Sturges or Don Siegel), "Six Black Horses" would not be so forgettable.