Warring cattle ranchers provide the set-up for H. Bruce Humberstone’s Ten Wanted Men, a solid but somewhat unexceptional 1955 western. It is a showcase for genre stalwart Randolph Scott, but in a year with 71 separate westerns competing for attention it ultimately forms part of the furniture. It is diverting, but also easy to bypass.

Arizona rancher John Stewart (Scott) is joined by his lawyer brother Adam (Lester Matthews) and nephew Howie (Skip Homeier) to help build the town of Ocatilla. When Howie earns the eye of Mexican servant Maria (Donna Martell), he also gains the ire of her employer and rival rancher Wick Campbell (Richard Boone). Resenting the Stewarts’ success, Campbell hires a posse of gunmen to overrun the town and force the Stewart clan to flee.

As my exploration of 1955 westerns continues, it has become clear that the majority of the films tend to fall into broad stereotypical categories. The most common is shaping up to be the ‘range war’ film, in which rivalries between cattle ranchers spill out into violence. It forms the basis of The Violent Men, which I recently reviewed, as well as Vidor’s Man Without a Star. It is the basis of Humberstone’s film, although in this case the conflict stems not from a desire to possess land but a desire to possess a young Mexican woman.

This in mind, it is a shame that Donna Martell does not get more screen time as Maria, the unwilling centre of Ten Wanted Men‘s particular range war. She sparks off the fighting, but once the bullets start flying she is largely relegated to the side lines. Instead the film predictably focuses on men with guns. It is a solid pack of gunslingers as well, including not only Boone and Scott but Leo Gordon and future western lead Lee Van Cleef.

The cast collectively ‘walk the walk’ of what is required from them, but there is no covering up the film’s rather lacklustre screenplay. Ten Wanted Men represents the basic standard of the American western in the mid-1950s. It does precisely what it is intended to do, and little more. While there are definitely still highlights – Richard Boone makes a wonderfully suave and insincere villain for one – in the broad scheme of 1955 cinema Ten Wanted Men very much slips to the background.

It is interesting to note Randolph Scott’s role in the lead. In a career than ran from the 1920s to the 1960s Scott was best known for his westerns, which comprised 60 per cent of his career. There is a definite shift in his screen persona post-World War II, where Scott (by then in his mid-50s) became a much more reluctant and resigned figure. This innate weariness powered him through some of his best-ever westerns directed by Budd Boetticher, and culminated in Sam Peckinpah’s Ride the Wild Country (1962). It was Scott’s final and, from what I have seen, best film.

1955 West is a review project to watch as many western features from 1955 as possible, in order to gain a ‘snapshot’ view of the genre at its height. According to Letterboxd, there were 71 westerns released that year. You can see all of FictionMachine’s reviews of them to date by clicking here.