Roy Rowland directed Gun Glory, a B-Level Metrocolor Western, starring Stewart Granger and Rhonda Fleming, based on an original story by Cyril Hume.
Granger, in on of his last contract roles at MGM, plays Tom Early, who rides into a Wyoming town where he had once lived with his wife and son. In the general store, owner Wainscott is annoyed when his sexy clerk Jo (Fleming) is flirtatious with Early.
At his old ranch, Early finds his wife’s grave and his 17-year-old son, Tom Jr. (played by the son’s director), an immature man embittered by his father’s abandonment.
Jo takes a job as housekeeper at Early’s ranch, and resists the advances of Tom Jr.,When they attend church, Wainscott turns the preacher (Chill Wills, replacing Burl Ives) and congregation against them, insinuating Jo is living there in sin.
The townspeople need help, when gunmen working for the villainous cattleman Grimsell ambush one of their own. A posse is formed, but by the time Early gets there, the preacher is dying and Tom Jr. is wounded.
Tom uses TNT to start a rockslide, stampeding Grimsell’s cattle and killing some of his men. In a showdown, Early fights with Gunn, one of Grimsell’s men, eventually helped by son Tom Jr.
The film is familiar Freudian melodrama, about a father who needs to make a “real man” out of his boy. Too conventional to generate interest, the film, which was shot on locations in California’s Humboldt County, was a commercial flop.
Cast
Stewart Granger as Tom Early
Rhonda Fleming as Jo
Chill Wills as Preacher
Steve Rowland as Tom Early, Jr.
James Gregory as Grimsell
Jacques Aubuchon as Sam Wainscott
Arch Johnson as Gunn