EDITOR’S NOTE: The Fiend That Walked the West was on the CBS Late Movie on July 18, 1973 and January 22 and July 30, 1974.

The inspiration for this movie is a fascinating blend of genres, directly drawn from the film noir Kiss of Death, which was also written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer. The director of that movie was Henry Hathaway, but this was made by Gordon Douglas, who started his career as an extra in the Our Gang movies. He also directed Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Viva Knievel! and In Like Flint.

Do you know who else was listed as a writer for this? Phillip Yordan. Yes, the same man who perhaps didn’t write most of the films on his resume, as he was a front for blacklisted writers, but definitely put together Night Train to Terror.

While Fox recycled the script* — and the Bernard Hermann score from The Day the Earth Stood Still — they did shoot this in CinemaScope, and it had a decent budget, but it was saddled with a title and campaign that made it look like a horror movie for kids — with an adults-only certification — and the alternate titles that were tried like The Hell-Bent Kid, Rope Law, Enough Rope, Quick Draw, Quick Draw at Red Rock and The Hell-Bent Kid II are all rather dull by comparison.

They should have used the intriguing French title Le Sueur au visage d’ange (The Killer with the Face of an Angel).

Daniel Slade Hardy (Hugh O’Brien) is a gunslinging criminal busted for a bank robbery and sent to prison for a decade. A decade before, he’ll see the baby his pregnant wife Ellen (Linda Cristel) will have. And a decade living with the psychotic Felix Griffin (Robert Evans), a man so deranged that he kills another prisoner by force-feeding his ground glass.

Yes, that Robert Evans.

The Kid Stays In the Picture Robert Evans.

The Chinatown, people getting killed to make The Cotton Club, Ali McGraw marrying Robert Evans.

The Robert Evans that turned a cocaine bust into community service by producing an anti-drug TV special, Get High On Yourself.

In his book, The Kid Stays In the Picture, Evans always talks down on his acting ability.

Is he any good in this? He’s not just good, he’s a revelation.

Also, 90% of my writing style comes from Robert Evans.

Griffin gets out early and makes his way to Hardy’s hometown, the place his cellmate always talked so lovingly about, and sets about killing everyone there, like shooting an old lady — who has the money from the botched bank robbery — with a bow and arrow before shotgunning another of the gang in the back. Then, as if getting the money isn’t good enough, he visits Hardy’s wife and frightens her so severely that she loses her baby.

Evans imbues his character with such menace, even taking on a woman of his own, May (Dolores Michaels). He declares that he’s so inside her head that he knows when she’s going to do something to hurt herself, then beats her unmercifully. Luckily, Hardy is released from jail as part of a secret plan to deal with Griffin.

Speaking of remakes, this movie was made a third time as Kiss of Death, with David Caruso as the hero and Nicholas Cage as the villain.

Look for future Tarzan Ron Ely as a deputy, Stephen McNally as the deputy and Edward Andrews as the judge. He was a noted character actor who often played authority figures, but most today would know him as one of Molly Ringwald’s grandfathers in Sixteen Candles or Mr. Gorben in Gremlins.

I had no expectations of this movie, and I loved every minute of it.

*A tip of the cowboy hat to Jeff Arnold’s West, which taught me that there was a trend of turning film noir into more box office-friendly Westerns, including High Sierra remade as Colorado Territory, House of Strangers becoming Broken Lance and The Asphalt Jungle putting on some spurs and being remade as The Badlanders.

Source

Robert Evans – Turner Classic Movies. https://prod-www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/58748%7C131692/Robert-Evans