Riding Shotgun (1954)

INFORMATION FROM IMDb

Plot Summary
After members of his family are killed by the Maraday Gang during a stagecoach robbery,
Larry Delong takes a job as stage guard in hopes that he will meet up with the outlaws.
After he is captured by the bandits, his shot-up stage is returned to the town
by the gang in order to draw the authorities out of town. After being left for dead,
Delong escapes to warn the townspeople of an imminent raid by the outlaws.
They don't believe his story and, in fact, accuse him of complicity in the stage robbery,
tasking the town's remaining deputy with arresting him.
A besieged Delong hides out in a local saloon before making his next move.
Written by Gabe Taverney

Cast
Randolph Scott ... Larry Delong
Wayne Morris ... Deputy Sheriff Tub Murphy
Joan Weldon ... Orissa Flynn
Joe Sawyer ... Tom Biggert
James Millican ... Dan Marady
Charles Bronson ... Pinto (as Charles Buchinsky)
James Bell ... Doc Winkler
Fritz Feld ... Fritz
Richard Garrick ... Walters
Vic Perrin ... Bar-M Rider with Lynching Rope (as Victor Perrin)
John Baer ... Deputy Ross Hughes
William Johnstone ... Col. Flynn
Boyd 'Red' Morgan ... Henchman (uncredited)
Dub Taylor ... Eddie (uncredited)
and many more...

Directed
André De Toth ... (as Andre de Toth)

Writing Credits
Thomas W. Blackburn ... (screenplay) (as Tom Blackburn)
Kenneth Perkins ... (story)

Produced
Ted Sherdeman ... producer

Music
David Buttolph

Cinematography
Bert Glennon ... director of photography

Goofs
Continuity
About 10 minutes into the movie when the Marady gang ties up Randolph Scott,
they tie his legs right at the knees as clearly visible when they pick him up.
But in the next several scenes as he lays on the ground, there is no rope around his knees.

Revealing mistakes
When the shot-up stagecoach arrives in town with a supposedly dead driver slumped in his seat,
he visibly sits up enough in order to control and stop the horses.

Memorable Quotes

Filming Locations
Bell Ranch, Santa Susana, California, USA
Warner Ranch, Calabasas, California, USA

Riding Shotgun is a 1954 western film directed by
Andre De Toth, starring Randolph Scott, Wayne Morris and Joan Weldon.
the film was based on the 1942 short story Riding Solo by Kenneth Taylor Perkins.

User Review

Randolph Scott VS. Charles Bronson
26 January 2010 | by FightingWesterner (The Lonesome Prairie)

Quote from fighting

Stage-line security guard Scott is lured away from town by a member of his arch-enemy's gang and tied up to die from exposure. Escaping, he returns to find the stage robbed and everyone thinking he's in cahoots with the villains, with no one believing him when he tells them that the robbery was a ruse to get the law out on a goose-chase so that the real deal could go down. In fact, the whole town is ready to lynch Scott!

Though some of the portrayals of the ignorant townspeople are clearly over-the-top, Riding Shotgun is a very well-made and well-paced little western that really delivers the goods in terms of action and especially suspense.

There's a great role for a young Charles Bronson, who in his western debut (excluding an episode of The Roy Rodgers Show where he plays a boxer) as a sadistic member of the outlaw gang. The scenes where he joins the lynch mob and stokes them are pretty neat.

There's also a great role for Wayne Morris, who's probably best remembered for his role as a cowardly officer in Stanley Kubrick's Paths Of Glory, as the town's remaining deputy who desperately tries to prevent needless bloodshed.

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