Well, this one's in VistaVision, and is as sharp as a tack, but the blah b&w lighting is nothing to write home about. Henry Levin's flat direction gives the impression that all but a few scenes were carelessly dashed off. Jack Palance is fine, showing an atypical restraint, but the film generates little atmosphere or style to back him up. The colorful cast of B-Movie baddies (see above) are given little to do, and none of them distinguish themselves, not even the always-welcome Lee Van Cleef. Gravel-voiced John Doucette doesn't even have any lines, which is a real waste.

Anthony Perkins does well with a theatrical script that requires him to be unreasonably bitter, so that he can mellow out later. We don't buy it, no more than we buy the weak idea that Riley would leave his home to accompany his dad, to remind him of his sins. Also rather obvious is Elaine Aiken's dance-hall-girl turned rancher. She's desperately in love with Palance, and then abruptly attracted to Perkins. It's barely addressed in the script and the triangle never becomes an issue. Palance is never even aware of a problem. It looks like a pure case of a director not addressing the issues implied by the script.

On the IMDB we find that the beautiful Aiken made few movies but was notable in New York theater circles. Unlike many 50's blondes in Hollywood, she can really ride a horse - perhaps because she's originally Elena Arizmendi from Andalusia, Spain.

In fact, the best part of this stagey film are some sequences chasing a wild horse in the desert. The horse is convincingly wild, and the principals appear to be doing their own riding. In one scene, the stallion escapes from a tight corner by leaping over a boulder and dashing down a dangerous-looking canyon. If only the rest of the show played this well.

Production qualities are very uneven. The VistaVision looks good, but there are too many poorly-paced, one-angle scenes. Several short scene-lets end in ugly fadeouts, before people can finish their last dialogue lines. From an editorial point of view, I wonder if the transitions were originally straight cuts, after which someone decreed they all had to be fades, when was too late to recut. It's difficult to tell, but what's on screen is very distracting.

This is the only early-career film I've seen of Anthony Perkins than can be described as a failure. Robert Middleton accompanies him from the same year's Friendly Persuasion and again does a good job. Don't confuse this with a similar coming-of-age Western Perkins made the same year, The Tin Star with Henry Fonda. It has Neville Brand as well, but was directed by Anthony Mann and is much better. I'm willing to believe someone over at Paramount is an Anthony Perkins fan, what with this release and Fear Strikes Out, a superior baseball movie from a couple months back.

For those looking for every Western under the sun, Paramount's DVD of The Lonely Man will be more than satisfactory, with a clean 16:9 picture and clear audio for the forgettable Tennessee Ernie Ford title tune. There's nothing much else to recommend it; despite what the optimistic liner notes say, it's by no means comparable to classics like The Gunfighter, Shane, or Unforgiven.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Lonely Man rates:
Movie: Fair
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: None
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: May 29, 2003