High On The Lippert List

A Post-Civil War Sleeper: Hellgate (1952)

Charles Marquis Warren was a talented writer of (mostly) westerns who made a deal with Bob Lippert to pen/direct a trio in 1951-52. Only two got made thanks to Lippert being in hot water with trade guilds who said he failed to spread money from TV sales among them per blanket deal unions had with the industry. Warren's completed pair (Hellgate and Little Big Horn) were standouts among Lippert output, a tier (not far) below an outstanding group Samuel Fuller had done for the low-budget producer. Hellgate was Warren's re-think of the Samuel Mudd story, names and backgrounds changed, but a same essential drama. Plan was to shoot on Utah location, but this being Lippert, it came to Bronson Canyon for bleak prison to which wrongly accused Sterling Hayden is sent. Bob Lippert would look back on Hellgate as one of few good ones bearing his imprinteur, there being infrequent occasion when talent like Warren's landed at the producer-for-pennies' door. Lippert was like later AIP in giving starter-outs a chance. For doing so, he'd be rewarded with good westerns like Hellgate. VCI-Kit Parker has a quality DVD available on its Darn Good Westerns: Volume 1 set, which includes three other Lipperts of similar interest.