The damaged, vulnerable hero and the anti-hero are facets in the same persona and cannot be separated, even when the harm is physical as in The Duel at Silver Creek.

Leonard Goldstein, the producer, has propped this routine affair against some average Technicolor scenery, and the commotion remains as pat and unsurprising as the kicked-up dust, which, in all fairness to Don Siegel's direction, is plentiful. oh to be in the wild west and wear a cool black leather jacket like audie murphy -- his babyface blasting baddies with two shiny six-guns, because sometimes overkill is the right amount of kill. Additionally, Audie Murphy's cropped, black leather jacket is sweet as hell, and this early Lee Marvin role as a local shit disturber reveals just how early he settled into playing sexy, smirking dirtbags. However, that doesn't make this any less enjoyable of a film because Siegel throws in a lot of shootouts and chases to make it all exciting, while the Technicolor photography is sumptuous and the story has enough twists and cool characters to make it work. A band of ruthless claim jumpers invade the local area and begin robbing, extorting, and killing miners who have struck it rich.This focused plot is improved by a good range of fun characters – with fancy names and exaggerated characters to match: the tough broad, the kid, the tough sheriff, the old coot etc.

Unashamedly pulpy is this Western, no surprise when you see that it's an early film from legend Don Siegel. Alone with McNally, Domergue vamps him into forgetting his job…In a sense, McNally’s gun had abandons him by becoming lame after an injury, leaving him more open to assault. The story takes an ominous twist after the Marshall meets the scheming girl Opal Lacy who has secret plans that aren't in the Marshall's best interest.I don't know what surprised me the most, a western directed by Don Siegel and such a clean one (in the sense it is not very gritty and it follows the plot points of most westerns of the 50's) or the fact that Lee Marvin once had hair which was not white. The Duel at Silver Creek is a 1952 American Western film directed by Don Siegel; his first film in the Western genre.