Wanted: Dead or Alive

Plot synopsis:
Josh Randall (McQueen) is a Confederate veteran and bounty hunter with a soft heart. He often donates his earnings to the needy and helps his prisoners if they have been wrongly accused.
Randall carries a shortened Winchester Model 1892 carbine called the "Mare's Leg" in a holster patterned after "gunslinger" rigs then popular in movies and television. Randall can draw and fire his weapon with blazing speed. Three Mare's Legs were used in the series, differing in the shape of the lever and the barrel.
Although Randall is a bounty hunter, he doesn't chase and capture only men on wanted posters. He also settles a family feud, frees unjustly jailed or sentenced men, helps an amnesia victim recover his memory, and finds missing husbands, sons, fathers, a fiancée, a suitor, a daughter who had been captured many years earlier by Indians, an Army deserter, a pet sheep, and even Santa Claus. This variety, as well as his pursuit of justice and not just money, contributed to the show's attraction and popularity.
Except for a few episodes at the beginning of the series, Randall rode a horse named Ringo.
Several episodes in 1960 included a sidekick named Jason Nichols (Wright King), a deputy sheriff turned bounty hunter. He and Randall worked well together on-screen, sharing a chemistry audiences enjoyed. By the start of the third season, Nichols had been dropped. The episode called "The Partners", where Nichols killed three men that Randall felt could have been taken alive, is often considered the episode that broke up the partnership, although that was actually only the second episode with Wright King and long before the last episode he appeared in.

Tags: murder

Review:
Another recycled western plot rides again.. U.S. Marshals Whip Wilson, Jim Bannon and "Texas" set out to capture a gang that has been collecting on wanted men, "Dead or Alive." The latter are all bought in dead...after the gang has helped them escape prison and a reward has been posted on them. Bringing them in alive won't work, as the escapees might get talky and tell the law who helped them escape in the first place. Whip, with the help of the law, poses as an "escaped" convict named Mason.The latter, fiancé of a girl saloon owner named "Spangles" Calhoun, has been imprisoned on perjured evidence. A reward for "his" (Wilson posing as Mason) capture has been posted. Whip goes to Copper City and "Spangles'" saloon. She, in the law's plot, hides him. The "Dead or Alive" gang, Taggert, Utah, Mike and others, are tipped to "Mason's" hiding place. Bannon gets in with the gang and when they attempt to grab Whip (posing as Mason), all are arrested. As a reward for her help Whip promises "Spangles" to get a full pardon for her lover.. Unattractive and unappealing lead!. Whip Wilson, Fuzzy Knight, Jim Bannon (themselves), Lane Bradford (Utah), Christine McIntyre (Spangles Calhoun), Stanley Price (Meade), Marshall Reed (sheriff), Zon Murray (Mike), Leonard Penn (Taggart), John L. Cason, Kenne Duncan (henchmen), William Fawcett (bartender), Ray Jones, Jack O'Shea.Director: THOMAS CARR. Screenplay: Harry L. Fraser ("Clint Johnson"). Photography: Ernest Miller. Film editor: Sam Fields. Music: Raoul Kraushaar. Art director: Fred Preble. Set decorator: Harry Reif. Dialogue director: Stanley Price. Set continuity: Mary Chaffee. Assistant director: Melville Shyer. Sound recording: Charles Cooper. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: Vincent M. Fennelly. A Frontier Pictures production for Monogram. Copyright 9 September 1951 by Monogram Pictures Corp. No New York opening. U.S. release: 3 April 1951. No U.K. or Australian theatrical release. 58 minutes. SYNOPSIS: A U.S. marshal traps a gang of murderers that capture and kill outlaws in order to collect the reward money. COMMENT: Weak Whip Wilson western. It starts promisingly with some ingeniously edited and atmospherically paced establishing scenes (although the plot is obviously derived from a Wild Bill Elliott western also directed by Thomas Carr), but on the entrance of Wilson himself (a stocky, balding, unattractive lead man with as much personality as a cheap but overworked dentist) interest deteriorates rapidly.The rest of the cast has almost nothing to recommend it either. Christine McIntyre is an old bat and the lead villain is as dull as dishwater. His henchmen, played by Lane Bradford and some unknown, are a mite more interesting, whilst Jim Bannon does okay as the second lead (he looks and acts a bit like Wild Bill Elliott) and Fuzzy Knight is his usual self (though at least his "comedy" isn't so broad as usual — it's just plain dull).Action is kept to a minimum and Wilson uses his whip only once — to unseat the villain from his horse at the climax (and then with just about one punch he knocks him out).The rest of the film is filled with the most trite and clichéd dialogue ("You'd better have something real interesting to say, stranger") shot almost entirely in the same cramped set.Production values are less than minimal ("The drinks are on the house!" the hostess exclaims after a tame fight scene, at which there is a stampede to the bar comprised of precisely two persons!)Carr's direction after the first few minutes is steadfastly routine. Some of the exteriors are not badly composed, however, and some effort has obviously been made to make the best of the locations.But the plot is too familiar, the action too infrequent and too tame, plus the added handicap of the unattractive and unappealing Mr. Wilson.