This is the title of the German version translated into English. That is the way in the sixties German audience could have been attracted to a western movie. This is for me in some respects an outstanding western. I would like to explain why. American western movies are often not very realistic . I give you some examples: 1. heroic main characters are often good looking, handsome (which is not really what disturbs me) and know how to use a gun or knife 2. the characters are mostly simple, straight-forward, there is the good and there is the evil 3. the movies make us believe that the wild west bustled with a few reasonable and righteous people and astonishingly out of 200 adult inhabitants of a town, 190 are cowards or villains or lynchers and of course miserable people or everything altogether which one could find in the gutter of humankind (outside town the rate is a little more favourable)- something I cannot believe,because I do not want to believe, that we Europeans only sent the sludge of our civilization over the ocean. 4.as for shooting! Shootings in American western movies! A world in itself. I wonder whether writers, directors are aware that this is always the most unrealistic part in their films. In every western movie you see somebody shooting with an old muzzle loader 5 miles and kick the rider from the horse; in every movie you see cowboys shooting from the hip, without aiming on a silver dollar thrown into the air, you guess, they hit, not to speak that villains do not get their opponents although they fire from close distance, let us say 20 centimeters, hundreds of broadsides, while the sheriff is shooting back with one single shot between the eyes of the five bandits. This reminds me to war films, where the American guys are outnumbered by their enemies who have a tremendous arsenal of weapons which turn out to be completely useless whereas the American guy swiftly (and heroically) kills with his Colt a whole batallion. What is this nonsense for? Life is not like High Noon. But sometimes it is good to believe it, right? I stop the list here to come to the "man like a devil". What an incredible scene! The sheriff has a shootout with the villain and what happens? I could hardly believe my eyes. The sheriff is felled - although not deadly. The gangster prevails! When it comes to the second shooting the sheriff is clever enough not to risk a fair duel.Right so! That is something I can take. Can You remember the scene where Rob Roy desperately holds the sabre of the opponent who is going to kill him in the next moment with his bare hand?! The big man has no chance in the fair fight against the small but capable adversary, but he has a helping idea. That is how you have to go against the rat pack of this world, which is often more powerful, more skilled. This western movie has some astonishing aspects and therefore I honour him with 8 asterics. By the way Randolph Scott is in his western movies always already a senior. It is the same in true life. Do not expect too much from the youngsters,usually they wet their trousers in difficult situations!
Review of A Lawless Street
