Posse from Hell

In 1880, four escapees from death row--Crip, Leo, Chunk, and Hash--ride into the town of Paradise and enter the Rosebud Saloon. Crip shoots the town marshal Isaac Webb and holds ten men hostage in the saloon, killing some to ensure the four are unmolested. The gang leaves town with $11,200 from the Bank of Paradise and hostage Helen Caldwell.

Banner Cole rides into town, having received a request from Webb to join him as his deputy. Webb's last act before dying is to deputize Cole, telling him to do the right thing. Cole agrees, and heads out to hunt the outlaws alone, but town elder Benson convinces Cole to follow Webb's wishes and organize a posse.

Cole's posse eventually consists of Captain Jeremiah Brown, a has-been ex-cavalry officer with delusions of grandeur; Jock Wiley, an overeager young trick-shooter; Uncle Billy Caldwell, a drunk who insists on helping rescue his niece Helen; Burt Hogan, who seems emotionally torn between lingering jealousy of his dead brother (one of those murdered by the four convicts) and avenging him; Johnny Caddo, an American Indian who is apparently only allowed to live in Paradise because of his skills as a blacksmith; and Seymour Kern (John Saxon), a tenderfoot banker, just arrived on a special assignment from the New York parent office of the bank, and who is browbeaten into joining the posse by the Paradise branch manager.

The posse soon find Helen, who has been left behind. Cole tells Uncle Billy to return with her to town, but Capt. Brown's clumsy attempt to console her (the script tiptoes delicately around the fact that the outlaws have raped her) only upsets her more and she tries to kill herself. Cole prevents that and Billy heads back, with Helen on a travois behind his horse.

Capt. Brown continues to find it impossible to believe he's not in charge and demonstrates his incompetence by disobeying Cole's orders and opening fire on four men initially thought to be the outlaws. But it's four cowhands, who lost two men to the outlaws. Cole has to wound Brown to stop his shooting and orders him back to town with the cowhands.

The posse heads for the ranch house where the cowhands encountered the outlaws and finds them still there. After a gun battle, three outlaws escape; the fourth kills Wiley but is then killed by Cole. Hogan begins shooting the corpse of the outlaw, claiming he wasn't dead and was the man who killed his brother. He then quits the posse.

Cole tells the other two (Caddo and Kern) to join Hogan, but they refuse. They continue tracking the party but realise that the outlaws have doubled back. The outlaws attempt an ambush, killing Cole's horse. Cole shoots Leo as the outlaws flee. They find he's not dead, but he soon does die, after telling Cole the others are heading back to Paradise.

A second ambush results in the death of Caddo and his horse. Cole and Kern track the remaining 2 outlaws to a ranch house near Paradise, the home of Helen and her Uncle Billy. Crip kills Uncle Billy. Kern wings Hash, who shoots back, killing Kern's horse, which falls on him, breaking his leg. Helen finishes Hash off with a six gun, then drives the buck board towards town. Cole goes after Crip and in the ensuing gunfight, Cole is shot in the side and Crip is killed.

The wounded Cole carries the injured Kern back into town. When the townsfolk try and help, he remarks with disdain. "Touch this man and I'll kill ya". Both men survive and are patched up. The townsfolk are divided on whether Cole should stay on as town marshal, but Cole remembers the echo of Marshall Webb's words that some people are good and to put down roots, and decides to stay on.

• Audie Murphy as Banner Cole
• John Saxon as Seymour Kern
• Zohra Lampert as Helen Caldwell
• Vic Morrow as Crip
• Robert Keith as Capt. Jeremiah Brown
• Rodolfo Acosta as Johnny Caddo (as Rudolph Acosta)
• Royal Dano as "Uncle" Billy Caldwell
• Frank Overton as Burt Hogan
• James Bell as Mr. Benson
• Paul Carr as Jock Wiley
• Ward Ramsey as Marshal Isaac Webb
• Lee Van Cleef as Leo
• Ray Teal as the bank manager
• Forrest Lewis as Dr. Welles
• Charles Horvath as Hash
• Harry Lauter as Russell
• Henry Wills as Chunk
• Stuart Randall as Luke Gorman
• Allan Lane as Burl Hogan^[3]