The Cimarron Kid | |
---|---|
Directed by | Budd Boetticher |
Screenplay by | Louis Stevens |
Story by | Louis Stevens Kay Lenard |
Produced by | Ted Richmond |
Starring | Audie Murphy Beverly Tyler Yvette Duguay |
Cinematography | Charles P. Boyle |
Edited by | Frank Gross |
Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 84 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $1.25 million (US rentals) [1] |
The Cimarron Kid is a 1952 American western film directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Audie Murphy, Beverly Tyler and Yvette Duguay. [2] It was produced and distributed by Universal Pictures.
Bill Doolin (Audie Murphy) is released from jail and is going home on the train when it is held up by his boyhood friends, the Dalton Gang. Doolin finds himself accused of helping the crime and winds up an outlaw.
Doolin rides to the Dalton gang hideout. The Daltons want him to join their gang. They are planning to rob 2 banks in Coffeyville at the same time. Doolin agrees to go with them.
Doolin enters one of the banks with two of the gang members. Meanwhile Bob Dalton enters the other bank. However someone enters the bank and runs out to warn the town. The shooting starts and most of the 6 gang members are killed. Only 2, Bill and Bitter Creek, get back to the hideaway.
A manhunt ensues for the remaining gang members.
The gang meet at Pat Roberts’ place. Red Buck wants to go back to Coffeyville and try to rob the banks again. Bill refuses and the rest of the gang members agree with him.
Swanson and Marshall Sutton arrive at Roberts’ house and the marshall searches the barn and knows they’re hiding in there. The marshall and Swanson leave. Bill decides they have to leave there. He talks with Carrie Roberts and she tells him he’s headed to death on a dark road. She tells him she and her dad often go to Boonsville and maybe she’ll see him there.
The gang continues to rob banks. Rose gathers information in Boonsville and passes it to Bitter. Carrie arrives and greets Bill. They are followed by 2 agents. Pat Roberts arrives and covers for them so the agents think they have the wrong man.
The gang is pursued by the law. They go to Stacey’s home and hide there. They fall into a trap and are surrounded by the law. They escape via the entrance to the trains. Bill is shot and will recover. Carrie and Stacey arrive. Carrie and Bill are left alone. She tells him to cross the border and send for her. He refuses.
Dynamite, who survived the earlier fall into the water, returns and advises he knows of a gold shipment they can steal worth $100,000. Bill wants to talk to George Weber who told Dynamite about this. Dynamite brings George to the hideout. They send Rose to Dallas to check out George’s story. She talks with some people who know George. They confirm he works for the railroad.
Bill and Dynamite board the train with the gold onboard. They throw off the gold and Bitter grabs it but is killed by the law.
As the train approaches the next drop off, they drop the gold. Will Dalton approaches it and is killed.
Rose sends a telegram to George at the next train stop advising Bitter Creek was killed. He tries to hide it but Bill reads it and knows they’ve been betrayed by Dynamite and George. Dynamite shoots George, aiming for Bill. Bill wounds Dynamite and forces him to pick up the gold at the next stop. Dynamite is killed and Bill escapes.
Bill returns for Carrie to ask her to cross the border with him. Pat objects as Carrie won’t be safe. Bill and Carrie go to the barn, where the marshall is waiting. Bill is arrested and realizes Pat and Carrie turned him in. Pat tells him to serve his time and Carrie will be there for him. Bill leaves with marshall after he and Carrie embrace. Rose tells her she is lucky because Bill is still alive.
The film was based on a story by Louis Stevens. It was assigned to producer Ted Richmond at Universal for Audie Murphy in April 1951. [3]
It was the first Western from Budd Boetticher, who later became famous for his work in the genre. [4] “I became a Western director because they thought I looked like one and they thought I rode better than anyone else," said Boetticher later. "And I didn’t know anything about the West.” It was also the director's first film in color and his first under a long term contract with Universal Pictures. [5]
In the original script, Murphy's character died at the end of the movie, but the studio decided to change it to reflect the actor's rising popularity. [6]
The railroad scenes were filmed on the Sierra Railroad in Tuolumne County, California. [7]
The Dalton Gang was a group of outlaws in the American Old West during 1890–1892. It was also known as The Dalton Brothers because four of its members were brothers. The gang specialized in bank and train robberies. During an attempted double bank robbery in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1892, two of the brothers and two other gang members were killed; Emmett Dalton survived, was captured, and later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, although he later asserted that he never fired a shot during the robbery. He was paroled after serving 14 years in prison.
The Wild Bunch, also known as the Doolin–Dalton Gang, or the Oklahombres, were a gang of American outlaws based in the Indian Territory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were active in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma Territory during the 1890s—robbing banks and stores, holding up trains, and killing lawmen. They were also known as The Oklahoma Long Riders because of the long dusters that they wore.
William Doolin was an American bandit outlaw and founder of the Wild Bunch, sometimes known as the Doolin-Dalton Gang. Like the earlier Dalton Gang alone, it specialized in robbing banks, trains, and stagecoaches in Arkansas, Kansas, Indiana, and Oklahoma during the 1890s.
Cimarron may refer to:
Oscar Boetticher Jr., known as Budd Boetticher, was an American film director. He is best remembered for a series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott.
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George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb was an American outlaw of the American Old West. He was first a member of the Dalton Gang, but after being called "too wild" by Bob Dalton, he and Bill Doolin started the Wild Bunch gang.
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Gratton Hanley "Grat" Dalton was an American outlaw in the American Old West. He was one of three brothers in the Dalton Gang, led by his younger brother Bob Dalton. Both brothers were killed during a shootout in an ill-fated raid on two banks in Coffeyville, Kansas. Their brother Emmett Dalton survived to be convicted and imprisoned for fourteen years.
Buchanan Rides Alone is a 1958 American Western film directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott, Craig Stevens, and Barry Kelley. Based on the 1956 novel The Name's Buchanan by Jonas Ward, the film is about a Texan returning home with enough money to start his own ranch. When he stops in the crooked town of Agry, he is robbed and framed for murder.
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