The Purple Hills (1961) watch online HD

Pretty good oater, at least until the climax, which is poorly staged. Apparently, the Apaches practice never hitting anything they shoot at. Good thing for the white men, but a real departure from reality, especially when the red men level a steady fusillade. To bad this episode is not up to what's gone before.

The first part is good. We don't know who to root for since both Nelson and Taylor are flawed. They're both bounty hunters and not too trustworthy. This is a period when revisionist westerns were beginning to take hold, so there are no purely white hats or black hats. That kind of ambiguity adds to story interest, which, in this case, also includes fine desert photography.

Nothing special here, except a payday for two aging stars and part of a good story.

With the decline of musicals for Gene Nelson and Kent Taylor never being in the top tier of leading men these guys were scrambling for work as television arrives. The Purple Hills is what they settled for.

Gene Nelson is in the same business with the same motivation as James Stewart in The Naked Spur, an amateur bounty hunter who's thinking the $8000.00 on the hide of a certain outlaw will set him up nicely for life. Unlike Stewart he doesn't have anything against this guy the way Stewart had a grudge against Robert Ryan.

But Kent Taylor who was a member of the deceased's gang races to town to collect the reward. Add to that Jerry Summers who is the deceased's brother accompanied by his 'nanny' Joanna Barnes looking to gun the one who did do it. The relationship between Barnes and Summers is weird to say the least. But westerns were becoming allegedly adult at this time.

With deputy Russ Bender along to arbitrate they all set out to where the body is buried. But the Apaches are out as well and for reasons not explained they liked the deceased white guy.

The Purple Hills shot outdoors in Arizona is definitely a shoestring budget western with a rather unbelievable plot and a whole cast that looks like it's just going through the motions.

Well this is a new one for me, I'd never seen or even heard of actor Gene Nelson before, so having him show up in "The Purple Hills" was kind of interesting for me. His introduction at the beginning of the story is kind of unusual too because he's tracking down and attempting to shoot an as yet unknown character to the viewer, so you don't get a sense of who's a good guy and who's a bad guy until the story proceeds for a bit more. Even then, it was a stretch to warm up to his character Gil Shepard because of the way he ambushed his victim Beaumont.

You know, eight thousand dollars sounds like a huge sum of money for a bounty on an outlaw, and Beaumont's history didn't sound like he'd done that much outside the law except trade with the Apaches. For a deputy, Harkness (Russ Bender) seemed pretty level headed in his approach to settling the dispute between Shepard and Barnes (Kent Taylor). On top of that he had to contend with the dead man's brother (Jack Carr) out for revenge and his self proclaimed guardian, Miss Amy Carter (Joanna Barnes). I couldn't believe that Miss Carter joined the sheriff's little excursion back to the outlaw's burial place wearing a stylish blue dress. In all other respects, Miss Carter seemed pretty logical, so why she didn't wear an appropriate riding outfit didn't make sense to me. And did you notice, after her dusty tumble down the hill she managed to look good as new in the next scene and for the rest of the picture.

One of the cool things I like to look out for in these older Westerns is the price of goods and any sort of advertising. I got a real kick out of a wooden sign atop one of the barns in Twin Forks that stated 'Insist on Genuine Levi's'. In as much as the Levi Strauss Company produced their first pair of blue jeans in 1873, this was an interesting product placement that might have been historically accurate. You can use that tidbit during your next trivia contest.

I'd have to say there were a few cool twists thrown into the story to keep one guessing, like the way Barnes used the Beaumont belt buckle to enter his own bounty claim, and the grave switch with poor old Chito (Danny Zapien). I don't think I'm buying Barnes' turn at the end when he offered to cover Shepard against the Apaches. It didn't seem likely to me that he'd have a change of heart while cashing in his chips. But then Shepard did him one better by dropping his claim on the eight grand reward. Sometimes you just don't see these things coming.

Gene Nelson rose to prominence as a dancer -- his signature move was a leap from the floor to the top of a piano. He doesn't do any dancing in this decent Fox western about a couple of people who claim the bounty for killing a bad man -- and whose brother shows up in town whle they are disputing their claims.

Nelson appears in a beat-up outfit with his hair grown out. This is in contrast to the neat look cultivated by other western stars. The time of the B western was just about over and the plot points clearly to the scruffy violence of spaghetti westerns.

Veteran cinematographer Floyd Crosby shoots the dry landscape beautifully. One would expect no less of him.

Not a bad film, low budget, but fine location shots. Gene Nelson plays a b0unty hunter who kills the man he is seeking, but he has to bury him as his horse becomes lame and is unable to haul the dead body back to town. Meanwhile, another bounty hunter ( Kent Taylor) comes across the burial site and goes to town to make his claim for the money. Th3 sheriff ( Russ Bender) decides to take them both back to the burial site to settle the matter. The grave is in Apache territory and they don't want either man to have the body in the grave. Needless to say, a battle breaks out between the Apaches and the bounty hunters and their companions.