The Man Called Noon

Instantly forgettable Western about a Dryden-quoting gunfighter who suffers from amnesia until he falls down a ravine at the end and - surprise, surprise - remembers where the gold is and that he's not the villain everyone has accused him of being. The whole thing would be preposterous enough without Collinson's direction. He continually makes his actors compete with the flapping doors, wagon wheels, bites of driftwood and rock that he insists on placing between them and the camera. The only other shots in his repertoire are excessive close-up, zoom, and ground shots angled upwards at 45 degrees. Hardly surprising that you come out exhausted. (From a novel by Louis L'Amour.) CPe.