User Reviews

It could be I'm overdosing on movie Westerns, this one just didn't seem to have any life to it at all. Maybe it was Howard Duff in the lead role, not your usual Western hero. Or maybe the story was just too lackluster. There did seem to be an attempt made at introducing forensics into the solution of a murder committed by Duff's character, Deputy Frank Smeed, in the opening part of the story. The coroner says the fatal shot was fired from an angle looking down on the victim, while Smeed's description of his 'self defense' position was from the ground looking up. That's as far as it went though, as no trial was going to make it into the picture.

The positives here really have nothing to do with the main story. Lita Baron shows up as a singing cantina senorita with a whip! as part of her performance, making me believe she might have made it past the first round on American Idol. Then there's that wild saloon brawl between Deputy Gentry (Bill Williams) against the two henchmen Messendyke (Joel Ashley) and Van Horn (John Pickard). Fairly well choreographed and energetic, it could be a top ten contender.

What it boils down to is Frank Smeed symbolizing the broken star, a corrupt lawman who tries to take the money and run. It's eight thousand dollars in gold, but the owner will spend ten times that to get it back. This isn't likely to turn out well for Howard Duff, translating Spanish badly and running out of luck at Lost Doggy Creek. Better stick with the cop shows.

SYNOPSIS: A marshal is unconvinced that his deputy killed a man in self-defense. He asks another deputy to investigate.

COMMENT: Excellent. There's no reason why a conventional western should not also incorporate a murder mystery, so full credit must be given to the taut, well-characterized script provided by John C. Higgins (author of T-Men). True, Lesley Selander's direction is a cut or two above his usual capable (though hardly major league) standard, whilst William Margulies has lensed some striking location photography. Paul Dunlap too has also risen to the occasion with a powerful background score. What will interest the fans is that the action sequences are vigorously staged. Bill Williams even seems to be slugging and fighting without use of a double. The rest of the players, led by Howard Duff are nothing if not thoroughly convincing.

An interesting idea that has apparently been done in several forms, this goes from several film noir scripts to a western, and features one of the actor's who played the modern version of his character here just two years before. The audience knows that deputy marshal Howard Duff is guilty of premeditated murder from the start, his motive finding a hidden bag gold. He then intends to move on to another marshal position so he can be far away from the scene of the crime. Two obstacles hold him back: red tape and fellow deputy marshal Bill Williams who suspects his guilt of something more than just killing a man in self defense.

Probably one of the best westerns I'd never heard of, and featuring Duff in one of his best parts. Addison Richards is Duff and Williams' boss who has to hold Duff back from leaving, and nearly fooled by him. Lita Baron and Douglas Fowley are other important characters in the story, while Joe Dominguez as the aging Apache who witnessed the murder is the key to Duff's downfall. Not spectacular for photography or editing, but through its terrific script that creates some very memorable characters and ends up being much better than the simple seeming western crime drama it comes across as.

Veteran B-movie director Lesley Selander helmed his share of westerns during his 36-year Hollywood career. While most of them amounted to routine assignments, he managed to make several that stood out from the pack. "The Broken Star" qualifies as one of those sagebrushers. Scenarist John C. Higgins rarely wrote a bad movie, and his track record backed up his reputation. "The Broken Star" is a largely intelligent oater produced in black & white on a low-budget with a sturdy cast, set in Tucson, Arizona, boasts enough offbeat things to make this 82-minute oater better than average. Cast as Arizona Deputy Marshal Frank Smeed, Howard Duff has done his share of good deeds over the years. Inexplicably, he decides to go rogue. He guns down one of the villain's henchmen as this yarn unfolds, appropriates $8-thousand dollars in gold, and spends the remainder of this well-paced horse opera struggling to cover his tracks. Unfortunately, an older Apache sub-chief, Nachez (Joe Dominguez of "The Ride Back"), witnessed Smeed shoot Carlos Alvarado (Felipe Turich of "Firecreek") in cold blood. The devious Smeed tried to conjure up a reasonable alibi to throw any suspicions off himself. Predictably, since this is a law & order oater, he must pay the ultimate price for riding on the dark side. The chief drawback of "The Broken Star" is we're never told why Smeed decided to ride a crooked trail. Smeed's best friend Deputy Marshal Bill Gentry (Bill Williams of "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo") stands by Smeed after he files his report on the shooting. It seems that long ago, Smeed stood by Gentry when the latter got into trouble for a shooting and almost swing up the gallows because an angry mob wanted to take matters into their own hands. Not surprisingly, Gentry stands up for Smeed until he learns his old friend has gone to the dark side. The $8 thousand in missing gold prompts the chief villain, Thornton Wills (Henry Calvin of "Ship of Fools"), to dispatch two henchmen, Van Horn (John Pickard of "True Grit") and Messendyke (Joel Ashley of "Warlock") to question Alvarado's sister Conchita Alvarado (Andalusian-born actress Lita Baron of "Red Sundown") about the missing loot. Wills believes she has the missing loot. Marshal Gentry catches up with these two galoots trying to beat the truth out of poor Conchita and throws them in jail.

Nevertheless, the henchmen make bond and get out. Wills reprimands them and sends them back to grill Conchita. This time they go too far, leaving telltale bruises on her face, and Gentry corners them in a cantina and beats them to within an inch of death. You see, Conchita is Gentry's woman and they plan to wed. Eventually, the chief lawman Marshal Wayne Forrester (Addison Richards of "Ball of Fire") gets suspicious. Meantime, Smeed begins to feel the heat build. He runs across Gentry out in the desert after he kills Nachez and hides his body in a mine shaft. He disarms Gentry, ties him up, hands behind his back, and buckles the deputy's gunbelt around his ankles. Now, Smeed rides to the Apache Indian Reservation. He cuts a deal with the Indian Agent, Hiram Charleton (Douglas Fowley of "Bandido!") to give him two Native American guides to take him across the border into Mexico by backtrails. Charleton drives a hard bargain because he knows the amount of money that Wills is missing. Indeed, he wants half of the $8 thousand. Before he can make his getaway, Smeed tangles with Gentry and Gentry has to kill him. Wholeheartedly above average, "The Broken Star" is one of a few westerns where the lawman goes bad.