Claudio Carvalho
When the experienced bounty-hunter and former sheriff Morg Hickman (Henry Fonda) arrives in a town to claim his bounty for killing a wanted outlaw, he meets the rookie temporary sheriff Ben Owens (Anthony Perkins). Hickman befriends the boy Kip (Michel Ray) and is lodged by his widow mother Nona Mayfield (Betsy Palmer) at home. Meanwhile Ben asks Hickman to teach him to be a sheriff since he wants to be assigned by the residents to the position. Ben faces problem with the scum troublemaker Bart Bogardus (Neville Brand) and when a prominent dweller is murdered by two criminals, Bogardus organizes a posse to hunt them down. But Ben has decided to capture the killers alive and give a fair trial to them. "The Tin Star" is a great western directed by Antony Mann, with the 52 year-old Henry Fonda in excellent shape and Anthony Perkins in one of his first features. The bitter Hickman has a sad past that has certainly affected his behavior and Anthony Perkins is perfect in the role of the insecure Ben Owens. The happy end is a counterpoint to "Shane" that has similar situation of a stranger involved with a boy and a widow. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "O Homem dos Olhos Frios" ("The Man of the Cold Eyes")
sol-
Once a respected sheriff, a cynical bounty hunter takes to mentoring the nervous, inexperienced young sheriff of a sleepy town in this western drama starring Henry Fonda and Anthony Perkins (in the time before he became typecast in psychopath/horror roles). A common criticism of the film seems to be the casting of a timid Perkins as a sheriff, but his uneasiness in the role is very much deliberate and the chemistry between Fonda and Perkins works every step of the way. What does not quite work so well is a subplot with Fonda finding a surrogate son in a local boy of mixed ethnic descent. While a stranger to the town, Fonda is incredulously invited by the boy's single mother to stay at their house, and sleep in his bedroom (!), and when the boy later goes missing, Fonda's search for him is too obviously metaphorical to click (it is revealed that he lost his own son years ago). The entire second half of the film - not just the search for the boy - is weaker than the first half though with more action than acute dialogue exchanges between Fonda and Perkins. The second half does, however, feature a memorable final scene for John McIntire, who is great throughout playing a character one and a half times his actual age. The final showdown is not half bad either. The juice of the film though comes from the first half with the bond between Fonda and Perkins in the spotlight. Fonda almost seems to see a little of himself in Perkins at times, and he curiously seems to admire how genuine Perkins is about a job that he long ago dismissed as not worth the trouble or shiny, bright tin star.
alexandre michel liberman (tmwest)
It is incredible what time does to movies or what time does to you and you change your taste in movies. I always had something against "The Tin Star", perhaps because it was not in color and had no James Stewart. But nowadays black and white is so much better than color and Henry Fonda is such a great actor. Fonda here is Morg Hickman, a bounty hunter, but a much nicer character than Howard Kemp (James Stewart in "The Naked Spur"). Hickman is more at peace with himself than Kemp, up to the point that he is able to to do a good deed and help the young sheriff Ben Owens( Tony Perkins) face what could be a suicidal task. He is also not racist like most of the people in town who avoid Nona Mayfield (Betsy Palmer) because she was married to an Indian. Whatever was ugly in Kemp, looks hopeful and correct in Hickman. Like Mann telling us he wants to be more optimistic. Very good western, could it be an afterthought in "The Naked Spur"?
BigBobFoonman
I'm really not trying to be recalcitrant, but this was the worst big name western I've ever seen. A blatant "Shane" knockoff, with 2 male stars, Fonda and Perkins, who basically "phoned-in" their lines. They both looked like they'd had rather been anywhere but on that set. The action was tepid to non-existent, the acting TV-like and bland, with the exception of John McIntyre as "Doc"--he seemed fully engaged. Also, the excellent Lee Van Cleef, perpetually undercast, was locked in well to the bad-guy role. Neville Brand was given a terrible bully character to play, and seemed to be coasting. Strangely, they gave Brand a beautiful white horse to ride, while everybody else rode the usual TV-Land gaggle of stunt-ponies and quarter horses. The climactic scene was awkward, almost comical, and "anti"-climactic. The only interesting scene was the Doc riding home from fixing up somebody, in the dead of the night, using his old faithful buggy-horse as a precursor to cruise control...
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