text: I'm a huge Randolph Scott fan, but this film is a dud. The whole thing has a canned, fake, soundstage feel to it, with truly awful rear-screen projection. It has a good plot idea that the screenwriter has successfully buried in a nitwit script, which makes it impossible for the audience to become immersed in the action and truly care about any of the characters. The directing is pedestrian, and only accentuates how bad the script is instead of helping to improve it. I've seen plenty of thoroughly enjoyable "soundstage productions" before, but this is not one of them. All it does is make you appreciate the gritty Scott/Boetticher films all the more.<br /><br />Randolph Scott is tanned, trim, and shines that million dollar smile throughout. He's always a pleasure...even in the worst of his films. Aside from Scott, the other main reason I wanted to see this movie was due to how much I enjoyed Ms. Wymore in Errol Flynn's movie, "Rocky Mountian". In "Man Behind the Gun", she is just as beautiful, and you can tell she's a good actress, but she was forced to say some pretty dumb lines, and the blocking she was given by the director was truly awful. I've only seen Phil Carey in "Operation Pacific", and he plays the exact same character here...an arrogant pain-in-the-butt you want to beat into unconsciousness. I guess it proves he's a good actor...he made me hate him. There are some lame attempts at comic relief that only detract from the film, in my opinion. Although there are many elements to knock, I must say that I found myself truly enjoying the two Spanish songs sung in the musical numbers...but that's not why we go to see Randolph Scott movies, right?<br /><br />There are definitely worse Scott films out there, and this one certainly isn't unbearable, but it also certainly couldn't be deemed anything beyond mediocre.