Review of Hellfire

Hellfire (1949)
6/10
According to the rules God wins
4 June 2013
Card cheat Bill Elliott (Zeb) changes his ways and promises to build a church out in the Wild West after Minister H. B. Warner (brother Joseph) takes a bullet for him. The building of a church had been Warner's dream and Elliott gives his word to raise the money for it. However, he also commits to following God's path. Things get tricky when he comes across Marie Windsor (Doll) on the hunt for her sister. She has pretty much everyone after her and there is a reward out for her - dead or alive.

A peculiarity of this film is the way in which it is coloured. I'm not sure how intentional it was but the colours are heavily biased towards blue-ish green and something rather peachy. I'm not sure whether this is due to the quality fading but it certainly is different. The story covers quite a lot of ground and I enjoyed the ride, despite some heavy over-preachy nonsense, particularly at the end. Shame about that, really. The ending is somewhat ambiguous - what happens next?

The standout in the cast is Marie Windsor who plays her bad girl role very convincingly and has you rooting for her all the way. Go on Windsor! Shoot the holy guy. I'm fed up of his wholesome ways. The film is a buddy buddy movie at its core as we follow the relationship that develops between Elliott and Windsor as they seek their goals together. And it's not bad.
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