Plot: Three government men are on a mission to recover some stolen guns and re-establish peace with the Indians in this film sprinkled with tongue-in-cheek humor.
Starring. . . .
Webb Pierce
Carl Smith
Marty Robbins
Wayne Morris
Don "Red" Barry
Mary Ellen Kay
Douglas Fowley
Harry Lauter
The Jordanaires
Gordon Stoker
Neal Matthews Jr.
Hoyt Hawkins
Hugh Jarrett
Eddie Crandall
Bill Coontz
Eddie Little Sky
Charles Soldani
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Storyline Roundup: (note: SPOILERS)
It's 1871, and Marty Robbins, Carl Smith, and Webb Pierce are on a trail drive, delivering a herd of cattle to the Cheyenne reservation. But they are no ordinary cowpokes; Webb Pierce is a government agent from back East ("a real dude"), and he deputized Carl and Marty to help him find a shipment of stolen buffalo guns and to stop those who have been rustling the Indians' cattle. The Indians are growing restless, and war on the horizon.
While the "three musketeers of the West" are driving the cattle down the trail, a suspicious-looking group forms not far away. After the boss, Roeca (Morris) gives his orders to steal the whole herd, he leaves. Vin (Lauter) is not too happy with the boss missing out on the dangerous part of the job, but Murdock (Barry) sides with the boss.
When the rustlers move in, there's gunplay. Carl and Webb hear a thundering shot and recognize it as that of a buffalo gun. "Let's get it, Webb!" Carl shouts. "Marty, you stay with the herd!" Marty is just wading out of the murky river water after a fist fight with one of the bad guys.
Carl and Webb chase a couple of the men, and Carl gets into a fight of his own. He gets the buffalo gun he was after, but the man he fought with gets away.
Webb catches up with Carl. "Things like this just don't happen in Nashville," he says.
They stash the gun away, and then go up to the nearby reservation. They talk with the chief (Soldani) and the Indian agent, Roeca (the outlaw boss). Roeca offers his help, and suggests Carl and Marty go to Basquo Rocks to find the rustlers. After Roeca leaves, the chief says, "If I wished to see white man die, I tell him go to Basquo Rocks. Many angry Comanche hide there." This leads Carl and Webb to suspect Roeca.
They backtrack to go pick up the buffalo gun, which Webb hid in the base of a hollow tree, and Marty joins up with them again. But someone else found the gun first, and the three men lose the battle with the intruder.
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| Skunk & Gun |
Soon a wagon comes rumbling down the road, and the trio rushes up to it. The driver, Edward G. Hubbard (Crandall) at first thinks it is a holdup, and willingly sells them beans, apricots, fresh clothes, and a guitar from his wagon. They go into the brush to change into their new clothes, and when they come out, they are dismayed to find themselves in matching outfits. Before they can complain, Eddie Hubbard takes his wagon and leaves.
The boys go back to their campfire and eat apricots and play their new guitar. Marty complains about the apricots, "They are about the worst I ever tasted. Taste like the have gunpowder in 'em." He takes another bite and finds a percussion cap. Carl jumps up and digs into the apricot bucket.
"Well, look at this." He finds shell caps for buffalo guns.
They send a telegram to the sheriff in Las Cruces, but what they don't know is that the telegraph operator is Vin, one of the outlaws.
Despite being ambushed, chased, and attacked by some renegades, Carl, Marty, and Webb manage to make it into town. They go to the general store run by Eddie and his sister to investigate. Marty is immediately smitten with the girl, Clementine (Kay). He gets a date with her for a dance that night. Carl and Webb give Eddie the third degree and find out he was just delivering those apricots to Murdock.
The three men head over to the sheriff's office. The sheriff (Fowley) is quite a character, but he's honest. All four head to the telegraph office to find out why the sheriff never received the message that Webb sent. They talk to Vin and realize that he is lying and must be one of the bad guys. Later they follow Vin to Roeca's. They go in and find Roeca and Murdock (Vin is in the back room) and have a little conversation.
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| Murdock and Roeca |
Shortly after they leave, they see Vin ride away from Roeca's, and Marty goes after him and catches him. Then, Carl, Marty, Webb, and the sheriff trail Murdock and Roeca back to town, to Murdock's barn, where the dance is being held. Little do they know that the barn is also where the guns are being kept. They put Vin in jail. Eddie finds out, and they deputize him in hopes of keeping him quiet about it, but it doesn't work for long. Roeca tricks Eddie into telling him about Vin.
Marty meets up with Clementine at the dance, and Webb finds a girl named Lucy to dance with. Carl sings a song and then starts poking around the barn. Murdock keeps Marty and Webb busy singing songs, while his men are out on the range, gathering up cattle for a planned stampede into town.
While the cattle are creating a dangerous distraction, one of the renegade Indians working for Roeca slips into the jail and stabs Vin, and Roeca and Murdock work on loading the rifles, which were hidden in the loft of the barn, into a wagon.
The Indian who killed Vin tries to kill Eddie, but Webb shoots the Indian and saves Eddie. Marty and Carl come back from driving the cattle out of town with two outlaws. They take them into the barn in hopes of forcing them to show them the guns, but Roeca and Murdock jump out of the hayloft and a fights begins.
Of course, the good guys win, and the sheriff shows up just in time to take the bad guys to jail. With the buffalo guns recovered, Marty suggests that they start the dance back up.
Marty narrates (as he did throughout the entire film), and says, "Yep. Old Carl, Webb, and me rode out of town in true Western style—right into the sunset. . . . But I rode back."
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| Marty, Clementine, and their family |
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Songs:
The Same Two Lips (written and sung by Marty Robbins)
Sugaree (written by Marty Robbins) (sung by the Jordanaires)
You Can't Hurt Me Anymore (sung by Carl Smith)
Oh, My Darling Clementine (traditional, written by Percy Montrose [?]) (sung by Marty Robbins and the Jordanaires)
Someday (written by Sonny Curtis and Webb Pierce) (sung by Webb Pierce and the Jordanaires)
Buffalo Gun (sung by the Jordanaires)
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Notes:
Buffalo Gun was actually filmed simultaneously with Raiders of Old California, which starred Faron Young, in 1957, and was not released until '61. Many of the same actors are in both: Douglas Fowley (playing the sheriff in both), Harry Lauter, and Marty Robbins, for example. Marty's role as an outlaw in Raiders was much smaller than his leading role in Buffalo Guns.
Also much of the same footage was used in both films, and Faron Young wears the same kind of outfit as Pierce, Smith, and Robbins wear.
The three singers appeared together on The Country Show (Grand Ole Opry Stars of the 1950s) in their costumes and sang "Why, Baby, Why."
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Buffalo Guns is a 1961, Albert C. Gannaway Production, distributed by Globe Pictures.
72 minutes running time.
Filmed at: Corriganville Movie Ranch, CA
Walker Ranch, CA
Monogram Ranch, CA
Director: Albert C. Gannaway
Assistant Directors: Frank Fox
Dick La Croix
Producer: A. R. Milton
Associate Producer: William Ward
Screenplay by: A. R. Milton
Cinematographer: Perry Finnerman
Editor: Carl Pingatore
Art Director: George Troast
Sound Effects: Kay Harris
Music Department: Ramey Idriss