• Directed by Richard Bartlett
• Written by Richard Bartlett and Ian MacDonald
• Starring
  • Earle Lyon
  • Lon Chaney Jr.
  • Edgar Buchanan
  • Marie Windsor
  • Richard Bartlett
• Produced by Richard Bartlett and Earle Lyon

This movie was made in the same year as The Lonesome Trail, and by most of the same people. In fact, of the two, The Silver Star was made first, and it is only through the happenstance of The Lonesome Trail being presented first on the double-feature DVD that I watched and reviewed it before the earlier movie. Silly double-feature DVD.

On the other hand, had I watched The Silver Star first, I might not have ever gone on to see The Lonesome Trail, or at the very least I would have approached it with a healthy prejudice. For while The Lonesome Trail is an adequate but unremarkable filler Western, The Silver Star carries a fundamental core of lameness which no other virtues could disguise.

“C’mon, baby, even sheriffs need some sugar.”

The premise is this: young Gregg Leech (co-producer Earle Lyon) has just been elected sheriff of the small town of Boyce. He’s more than a little hesitant about taking the star, as he’s seen up-close and personal how the job interferes with prospects for a peacable life: His father and grandfather, it turns out, were also sheriffs in Boyce, and each died in the line of duty. (Grandpa died in 1865; Dad died in 1875; and for the last fifteen years until his voluntary retirement, the good Sheriff Dowdy (Edgar Buchanan) has been running things. Makes you wonder exactly where this generic little Western town is located, that it could be a tiny but growing burg on the frontier for a good four decades.) But Dowdy hand-picked Gregg Leech as his successor, and he won out in election over local attorney Harmon (Lon Chaney Jr., looking far more sober than he apparently was).

And don’t think I’m denying you the experience of gradually discovering all of this backstory by dumping all on you at once; we learn all of this, save the dates on the passed-on Leeches’ tombstones, in the first scene, as Leech and his fiancee Karen (Marie Windsor) take a moment out from his victory party to snuggle a little in the alleyway.

“No, son, gonads don’t come with the badge. I reckon you got to bring your own pair.”

And by the next morning, things are already turning sour. First thing, three rough gunslingers ride into town, brazenly wearing their guns despite local law, and tear down the victory banner hanging in front of the hotel. Then they take up positions in the saloon run by Karen’s father (Morris Ankrum), push around the locals, and make their intentions clear: Their leader, King Daniels (director/co-writer/co-producer Richard Bartlett), boldly declares his intention to kill Sheriff Leech if he isn’t out of town by 8pm.

To which the new sheriff reacts by… Well, he saw the three ride in with their guns hanging out, but didn’t want to cause trouble. He starts hearing of banners being torn down and local young men being beat up, and he rides past the saloon, but doesn’t go in. And while the three gunmen are relaxing in the saloon all day, getting drunker and meaner, the sheriff does nothing.

The Artist Formerly Known as King Daniels.

No, that’s not quite accurate. He tries to find a way out of his job, or failing that, out of town.

First he goes and recounts the ballots. Then he goes to the railroad ticket office to see if there’s anything passing through that day that he could hop. Then he stops by the blacksmith (Barton MacLane), who pointedly mentions that he voted for the other guy, to inquire about a used wagon. Even with the movie being in black and white, Sheriff Leech practically glows yellow.

“I am NOT drunk. I’m a method actor who specializes in alcoholic characters. (hic)”

And not surprisingly, no one sympathizes with him. Former sheriff Dowdy keeps giving him pep talks; Karen just stares in horror and bewilderment that Leech isn’t planning to last 24 hours as sheriff without “retiring.” To tell the truth, I was right along with her. I think the intention was that the audience was meant to feel the trepidation of being placed in that kind of situation, but Leech caves to threats and tries to find an escape route so fast, there’s no time to see any inner turmoil. In my mind, all of the earlier exposition about his father and grandfather really bites the character in the ass. Yes, he HAD seen what being a sheriff entails; it’s not as if he signed up thinking he was just earning money for college. He also talks at length about how the town needs to round up a posse and take care of the gunmen themselves, because sheriffs shouldn’t be expected to do all of the law-enforcing these days, but that rings hollow because (a) it’s pretty clear that that wasn’t the town’s expectation of a sheriff’s role when they elected him the day before, and (b) Leech doesn’t even offer to lead the posse or be a part of it. He doesn’t want help from the town in doing the job for which he allowed himself to be a candidate; he wants them to do his job for him.

This movie was made three years after High Noon (1952), and my guess is that the filmmakers thought they were taking a different stab at some of the issues which High Noon tackled so memorably; the train coming through at the end of the day certainly seems to be a clue in that direction, as does the conflict between family and violence in a nascent relationship. But Sheriff Gregg Leech turns out to be a craven coward unable even to admit his cowardice, acting as if it’s a matter of principle for him to back away from the job he accepted. Even when Karen tells him that, no, she won’t be leaving town with a coward, he still shows no signs of wavering; in fact, it’s after that that he pulls off his star and drops it on Dowdy’s table. And Dowdy’s still got enough of what made him a good lawman that he feels the need to pick up the star, pin it on, take Leech’s own gun and horse, ride back to Main Street, and attempt to solve Leech’s problem.

Say, he DOES know how to draw that thing! Huzzah!

And once the central character of the movie turns out to be so unworthy of regard, there’s nothing left to commend the movie. These budget westerns were all made on standing sets, with the same rented horses and rented costumes and lesser actors who compensated for any thespian shortcomings by acting stonyfaced and reserved (a technique Earley Lyon himself uses like it was going out of fashion). Once you stop caring about or respecting the protagonist, there’s nowhere else to look for entertainment value. Throw in the title ballad of “The Silver Star” by Jimmy Wakely, which is repeated roughly eighty-seven times in this 73-minute feature (in other words, any time Leech is alone on-screen without anyone to speak to), and the movie comes off with a net negative in my scorebook.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 4
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0