Stage to Thunder Rock ** (1964, Barry Sullivan, Marilyn Maxwell, Lon Chaney Jr, Scott Brady, John Agar, Keenan Wynn, Allan Jones, Robert Lowery, Anne Seymour, Wanda Hendrix, Ralph Taeger) – Classic Movie Review 14,011

A C Lyles Productions’ 1964 Western double feature film Stage to Thunder Rock stars Barry Sullivan, Marilyn Maxwell, Lon Chaney Jr, Scott Brady, and Keenan Wynn.

Director William F Claxton’s 1964 A C Lyles Productions/ Paramount Pictures American Technicolor and Techniscope Western double feature film Stage to Thunder Rock stars Barry Sullivan, Marilyn Maxwell, Lon Chaney Jr, Scott Brady, Keenan Wynn, John Agar, Allan Jones, Robert Lowery, Anne Seymour, Wanda Hendrix, and Ralph Taeger.

It is the second in A C Lyles’s series of 13 Westerns for Paramount Pictures, following Law of the Lawless (1964).

Conducting the bank robber Reese Sawyer (Ralph Taeger) to jail, lawman Sheriff Horne (Barry Sullivan) stops off at a rest house stagecoach station, where he has to shoot it out with a variety of villainous opponents, including rival sheriff Sam Swope (Scott Brady), who is after the bounty on Reese Sawyer (Taeger) and the prisoner’s wanted outlaw dad Ross Sawyer (Keenan Wynn).

Sullivan acts with a determined air of conviction, and there is also an entertaining old-time cast to help lift this Western up to the level of an enjoyable standard Sixties Western double feature filler.

Charles Wallace’s screenplay may be without particular originality or insight, while William F Claxton’s direction perhaps lacks subtlety or urgency. But nevertheless the quickly made movie is highly professional and competent, and A C Lyles’s conscientious production is buoyed up by W Wallace Kelley’s imaginative widescreen cinematography.

The film was released on November 10, 1964, by Paramount Pictures.

It is the second of eight Westerns Lon Chaney Jr made for A C Lyles between 1964 and 1968.

It is followed by Young Fury (1965), directed by Christian Nyby and starring Rory Calhoun, Virginia Mayo, William Bendix, Lon Chaney Jr, Richard Arlen and John Agar. 

© Derek Winnert 2026 – Classic Movie Review 14,011

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