fisherelle
Well above average film. The opening 30 minutes (in which Milland, our hero, doesn't say a word, despite being on screen most of the time)are particularly atmospheric. The film's strength comes from it's depiction of the harshness of the landscape and how this fact compromises the moral principles of several of the characters. We are shown a bleak, sandstorm-blown, yellow fever ridden, arid, uncompromising world where a fairly traditional western is played out. Ray Milland gives a good performance as the eponymous 'Man Alone', while his directing skills are less assured. Definitely worth watching, and a cut above most of the films in its genre.
KyleFurr2
I was surprised about how good this was since Ray Milland didn't star in hardly any westerns and this was the only western he directed. Milland plays a gunfighter who's horse dies in the desert and starts to walk when he comes across a carriage full of dead people and he takes a horse and goes into the nearest town. As soon as gets into town, Milland shoots a deputy who thought he was the killer and the whole town is after him. Milland winds up hiding in the basement of the sheriff and his daughter and the daughter winds up falling in love with him. Ward Bond plays the sheriff who was sick and when he wakes up doesn't know what's going on. It's a good western that isn't very well known.
alexandre michel liberman (tmwest)
Milland, besides acting also directed this western with excellent results. His role is of the gunfighter who hides in Barbara Steele's house where she lives with her father, the sheriff(Ward Bond).The relationship of this trio is the high point of the film, Steele the repressed daughter, Bond the father who will do everything to make sure she will never be poor and Milland the man who comes to liberate her. Raymond Burr is the corrupt boss who rules the town and Lee Van Cleef is a mean guy who works for him. Things get so desperate for Milland that is hard to think how he is going to get out of it. He was a witness to all the dirt and murder that went on, so they must kill him.
funkyfry
Ray Milland makes use of his silent film experience to play the first half of this movie virtually without speaking. He plays the title character, a lonely man in ever sense as he finds a group of slain stagecoach passengers, is forced to kill the sheriff (Hale, Jr.), sees another man shot before his eyes, and ends up a man wanted for all the killings. A good commentary on human weakness in the "psychological" tradition, but it gets to talky and melodramatic in the second half.Good supporting cast headed by Burr, Murphy, and Bond hold up well to Milland's straightforward playing and direction. A stark, fairly convincing western.
AD
