• I came across this film from 1956, Running Target on You Tube. It’s is well worth a view in my opinion .
  It provided a rare starring role for Arthur Franz (1920-2006) who made quite a few films in the 50s including the more well known, The Sniper (1952). He was George Raft’s brother in Red Light (1949).

In Running Target, Arthur plays modern day Sheriff Scott.
Set in the Colorado Rockies, thankfully the film is in color. I don’t think there were any indoor sets, so it must have looked great on the big screen when it was released in ‘56.

This is the story of a posse trailing four prison escapees , being tracked by Sheriff Scott and four other locals who have joined Scott  who is determined to bring the escapees back without bloodshed.

One  of them is Jaynes (Richard Reeves) whose pride and joy is his high powered scope rifle . He’s along just so he can get some target practice, even though Scott says, “This is a posse, Jaynes, not a lynch mob.”

As the film opens, high up in the hills where they have been tracking the four men, Jaynes has just shot dead one of them. They find a few things ( cigarettes, a baseball) he has stolen from the gas station belonging to Smitty (Doris Dowling) who is part of the posse because, she says, the convicts stole a rifle from her – and she knows the area.

 

 

 

 

I didn’t recognise Doris Dowling – she looked rather like Julie Adams.   Doris (1923-2004) followed her sister Constance to Hollywood. She only made about a dozen films in Hollywood. The two sisters moved to Rome and made several Italian films. Doris did a lot of TV in Hollywood in the 50s and 60s.

 

What a pity, Myron Healy is only in two scenes and has no dialogue! But his character provides a good twist at the end of the film.

The film’s director was Marvin R. Weinstein and according to IMDb, this was his only film, though he had been a cinematographer. I was impressed with some of the visuals.

An independent production which I am glad to have seen.