Last Train from Gun Hill: The Money Quote

An overlooked western Last Train from Gun Hill pits Marshall Matt Morgan, played by Kirk Douglas, against rancher and town-owner Craig Belden, played by Anthony Quinn. Written by James Poe, who also scripted Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Bedford Incident, you may see mention of a famous hanging speech. I couldn’t find it anywhere and so transcribed it from Netflix Watch Instantly.

As with nearly all westerns, sort through the horses and the shoot-outs and the unavoidable genre cheesiness you’ll find some tense drama and some fine writing. This one was somewhat ahead of its time in 1959, with a racial edge. Marshall Morgan’s Indian wife is raped and killed by two men on a lonely road. Their son witnesses and rides home on one of the horses, which has a distinctive saddle. Morgan knows who the saddle belongs to, his old friend Belden, who he hasn’t seen in years. He goes to Gun Hill and finds out one of the killers is Belden’s son. He’s wants to bring him in but the father will not allow it. Morgan manages to subdue Rick, the son, and is “holed up” with him handcuffed to a bed in the local hotel, which is surrounded by the elder Belden’s hired men. The younger Belden sneers at Morgan, tells him he’ll never get out alive and then claims he had no way to know it was his wife he’d killed, that she was just a “damn squaw.” An enraged Morgan chokes him near to death, then stops himself.

Belden mocks him again: “Don’t take no guts to kill a man when he’s cuffed.”

And Morgan replies:

“Takes guts not to. Be too easy on ya. You die too quick. I know an old man who’d like to kill you, Belden. The Indian way. Slow. That’s how I’m going to do it. Slow. The white man’s way. First you stand trial. That takes a fair amount of time and you’ll do a lot of sweatin’. Then they’ll sentence ya. I never seen a man who didn’t get sick to his stomach when he heard the kind of sentence you’ll draw. After that you’ll sit in a cell and wait. Maybe for months, thinking how that rope’ll feel around your neck. Then they’ll come around some cold morning, just before sun-up. They’ll tie your arms behind you. You’ll start blubbering, kicking, yelling for help. Won’t do you any good. And then drag y’out in the yard, heave y’up on that platform, fix that rope around your neck and leave y’out there all alone with a big black hood over your eyes. You know the last sound you hear? Kind of a thump when they kick the trapdoor catch and down you go. You’ll hit the end of that rope like a sack o’ potatoes, all dead weight. It’ll be white hot around your neck and your Adam’s Apple will turn to mush. You’ll fight for your breath, but you haven’t got any breath. Your brain will begin to boil. You’ll scream and holler. But nobody’ll hear you. You’ll hear it. But nobody else. Finally you’re just swingin there’. All alone and dead.”