FanUnity B(uzz)log

If you liked Charlton Heston and Anne Baxter’s sultry chemistry as Moses and Nefretiri in The Ten Commandments, then there’s another picture you should watch: the somewhat hokey western Three Violent People. Filmed right after Cecil B. DeMille’s biblical epic, Three Violent People casts Charlton Heston in a role well suited to him; Chuck plays Colt Saunders, a proud confederate soldier returning to his family homestead after five years of fighting in the Civil War.

After his patience is tested by loud-mouthed carpetbagger yankees in a bar, Colt lashes out when he finds the same men harassing a lady on the street. A good ol’ fashion western fist-fight ensues, with Colt knocking out a number of the thugs before falling unconscious thanks to dirty play by one of the yankees. The police arrive just too late to help Colt out, and the yankees try to have him arrested (presumably) for assault. But the luscious fire-haired lady Colt saved, Lorna (Anne Baxter), claims he is her husband and saves him from the cops. As Colt lay unconscious in a hotel bed, Lorna, calculating vixen with her sights set on marriage weaves a web that ends up with Colt begging for her hand. She reluctantly accepts, and the two rapidly fall in love.

Upon returning to the Saunders’ ranch, Colt finds it in economic ruin thanks to heavy taxes laid by the provisional yankee government. As a result, Saunders is put into a situation where he must choose to fight the corrupt local lawmen, relocate his ranch out of Texas or continue to pay the taxes. Not long after his arrival home, government officials come to Colt’s property with a couple of U.S. army officers, whereupon a sheepish man by the name of Massey recognizes Lorna as a prostitute he kept with years before in St. Louis. Colt nearly guns Massey down before Lorna confirms it as truth, and then Colt tells the coward to vamoose from his ranch before being filled with hot led (not in those words, of course).

No longer respecting his wife, Colt gives her some money and tells her to leave. After this, while Colt goes off camping with some of his ranch hands to get away from the messy situation, his loser one-armed brother Cinch appeals to Lorna’s greed and tempts her to run away with him and steal the ranch’s cattle and horses. While camping out with his pals, Colt reflects on his relationship with Lorna after his Mexican mentor Innocencio describes how a man feels when he’s truly in love. But upon returning to the ranch, Colt finds that Lorna — who he now learns is pregnant with his child — has fled with Cinch.

Colt and his ranch hands quickly track the thieves and retrieve their stolen animals. Colt bans Cinch from the family property, upon threat of death if he ever turns up there again. After bringing Lorna back to the ranch, Colt cuts a deal with the woman — she stays on his land and has the baby and, after it’s born, he’ll give her a ton of money to disappear. The action culminates in a showdown when Cinch returns to the ranch bent on killing his brother, with the corrupt yankees in tow.

Perhaps added in a way by their rocky off-screen relationship (gauging from The Actor’s Life, at least), Baxter and Heston have an evocative sensual chemistry that heightens both The Ten Commandments and this movie. Overall, Heston’s performance as the pride-heavy Saunders is classic Chuck, complete with chivalry, dramatic stare-downs and good ol’ fashion courage. Baxter captivates as the wife with a shady past, while Gilbert Roland brings a great screen presence to Innocencio and Tom Tryon gives a solid show as the spiteful one-armed Cinch.

Although Three Violent People plays a big hokey these days, the rare electricity between actors that occurs when Baxter and Heston are on the screen together makes the movie well worth watching. And if you look real closely, you’ll even recognize M.A.S.H.’s Jaime Farr in an early role as one of Innocencio’s ranch hand sons (like you could miss that distinctive hooked nose of his). In short, Three Violent People isn’t a bad way to spend two spare hours in front of the television set. You could do better, but you could do far worse.

3/5 Stars.