Four men scheduled to be hanged escape, kill the sheriff and three other men, and kidnap Zohra Lampert for their personal amusement. Deputy Audie Murphy forms a posse of untried men to pursue them.

It's an Audie Murphy western, and so most of the scenes center around him. Happily for the movie, he's up to it, with a grim attitude and a lack of concern for details in how he gets the job done. John Saxon is an easterner stuck out west for some reason. Drafted into the posse, he is at first more concerned with what it's going to do to his clothes and his inexperience at riding a horse; nonetheless, he's game. Other performers are also good, as the movie western slides from the simple tropes of the classic B western towards the darkness of the violent spaghetti western. There's still a veneer of law and order, but it's more about order at any price.

DP Clifford Stine spent more of his career doing second-unit work than main photography, but he shoots the Alabama Hills as grimmer than any other movie I've seen. They're not just a backdrop, they're physically oppressive.

Audie Murphy fan or not, one needs no other reason to watch this Western than to catch all the cool supporting players. Not all of them are on screen much or last very long, but there's a bit of a who's who list of veteran character actors in the bunch, guys like Harry Lauter (the first to go actually in an early violent scene),Royal Dano, Lee Van Cleef, Ray Teal, Rocky Lane and I. Stanford Jolley among the cast list. And that's without even mentioning the great support from John Saxon, Vic Morrow and Rodolfo Acosta.

This one has Murphy in the role of a conflicted hero. I'd be curious to know how many times he appeared in films as a villain and as a good guy; he seemed to pop up in these B Westerns on both sides of the law as it were. One thing I thought the story could have done a better job with was with Cole Banner's (Murphy) back story, as we're given some sort of a hint by the dying Sheriff Webb (Ward Ramsey),but those details never materialize.

Leading a rag-tag posse in pursuit of four bank robbers from the town of Paradise, Banner takes some meager satisfaction in acknowledging that most of it's members aren't worth their salt. Probably the best element of the story deals with elite New York banker Kern (Saxon) and Indian guide Johnny Caddo (Acosta) proving their worth out on the trail, while hell bent for leather gunslinger Wiley (Paul Carr) freezes up during his very first, real live gunfight. That was a tough exit for Wiley.

There's also the uncomfortable theme of rape occurring off screen that provides moments of angst for Helen Caldwell (Zohra Lampert),kidnapped by the Crip Gang and left to fend for herself in the desert. Desperate to the point of suicide over her fate, Banner manages to convince her to return to Paradise and deal with her abuse constructively. I was relieved the story didn't try to take her relationship with Banner in the direction of a romance, it would have been all wrong for the dynamic of the picture.

Over all I'd rate this as one of Audie Murphy's better Western efforts, a notch below my personal favorite, "No Name on the Bullet". The one you really need to see though is his true life story depicted in 1955's "To Hell and Back", depicting Murphy's World War II service. As far as this picture goes, it seems to me there was one plot element left dangling at the end of the story, and that would be - how did Johnny Caddo's body make it back to Paradise for burial in the town cemetery?

Posse from Hell is directed by Herbert Coleman and adapted to screenplay by Clair Huffaker from his own novel of the same name. It stars Audie Murphy, John Saxon, Zohra Lampert, Rodolfo Acosta, Royal Dano, Robert Keith and Vic Morrow. Out of Universal-International, it's an Eastman Color production with cinematography by Clifford Stine and music supervised by Joseph Gershenson.

1880 and four escapees from death row ride into the small town of Paradise intent on causing mayhem. After robbing the bank and killing innocent men in the saloon, the men escape out of Paradise, taking with them a female hostage. A posse is formed, to be led by the slain Marshal's friend, ex-gunfighter Banner Cole, but good men are hard to find and Cole senses he would be better off on his own. But although many will die from this point on, from such adversity can heroes and friendships be born....

A little under seen and under appreciated is Posse from Hell. Hardly a deep psychological Western that strips bare the characters out on the trail, but certainly a picture high on action, blood and gutsy bravado. The title is a little misleading because the posse assembled is practically a roll call of stereotypes: gunman turned good, tenderfoot, man of different race ostracised, vengeful brother, pretty gal emotionally damaged, ex-army guy, wanna be kid gunslinger, and on it goes. Yet there is grim textures in the narrative (rape/revenge/cold blooded murder) and Gershenson scores it with horror movie strains. Even the blood red titles that open the picture look like something from a Hammer Horror production, clearly Coleman, Huffaker and co were aiming for a hellish wild west while cheekily having their posse formed out of a town called Paradise! A place where not all the citizens are stand up folk.

For Murphy fans this rounds out as real good value, he gets to do a number of great scenes like pouncing on a rattlesnake and diving through a window, while there's plenty of gun play moments for him to get his teeth into. But it also represents a good characterisation performance from him as Banner Cole, a man rough around the edges but definitely beating a humanist heart underneath the tough exterior. Around Murphy is a group of solid pros and up and coming stars, there's the odd iffy performance (Frank Overton) and overacting (Paul Carr),but nothing that overtly hurts the film. Main problem with it is that the villains remain elusive to us as characters, galling because we have been teased greatly in the opening section where we were introduced to some delicious villainy from Morrow as the leader Crip and Lee Van Cleef as Leo. More Morrow as a reprehensible bastard was definitely needed!

Major plus point is the use of Lone Pine, Alabama Hills, for the exteriors. A wonderfully rugged, yet beautiful part of the world, where the weird rock and boulder formations envelope the characters as a reminder that it's tough out here in the west. It's an area that Budd Boetticher and Randy Scott used to great effect for their superb Ranown Westerns. It's a shame that Boetticher never worked with Murphy more, for I feel sure he really could have gotten another 25% out of him, especially around the early 60s period. Still, Posse from Hell is a very enjoyable Audie Murphy picture, a bit more violent than most of his other Westerns, it's one that if you can forgive the odd creak here and there? And not expect some posse containing Satan's offspring? Then entertained you shall be. 7/10