A western, a revenge epic in the Sergio Leone mode, a 3D novelty, a soap opera, and a reunion for Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, who were so great together in "Double Indemnity" and "Remember the Night." By those standards it's a letdown, and screenwriter Niven Busch, who did well by Babs in "The Furies," seems unable to concentrate on any one plot strand for very long. Fred's a cattle rustler, or moonlighter, who's awaiting trial but facing a lynching, when, for contrived plot reasons, the mob seizes the wrong man and lynches him. Fred breaks out and swears revenge. Then it's a romance, as he heads back to his former sweetheart, who, unpersuasively, is being courted by Fred's younger brother, the always-watchable William Ching. He feels young for Babs, though, and this is a little late in her career for her to be playing an ingenue. Then, with the two brothers trading Babs back and forth, old crony Ward Bond shows up, and Ching unconvincingly leaves his steady bank teller job to assist the other two in robbing the bank he works for. The love story doesn't work, the 3D is largely unemployed except for one waterfall sequence that must have looked good, and the happy ending is rushed and ridiculous. Still, there are some good sequences--the hanging, a swell Fred-Ward fight, the tense bank robbery. Roy Rowland directs, as he always did, anonymously.
Review of The Moonlighter
