During his movie career, Audie Murphy made 45 films...and nearly all of them were westerns. A few of them were really, really good...such as "Drums Along the River" and "Apache Rifles". Many were just ordinary programmers....westerns with little to distinguish them. Sadly, "Cast a Long Shadow" isn't one of the better westerns...mostly due to the way his character was written.
When the story begins, Chip Donahue (John Dehner) finds Matt Brown (Murphy) doing what he loves to do these days...hanging out in a saloon, drink and gambling. Brown is pretty much a bum...which makes Donahue's visit an important one. It seems that Chip doesn't realize it, but he's the heir to a large cattle ranch and Donahue wants to buy it from him now that the owner has died and left it to Brown.
Brown agrees to sell the ranch but soon after arriving at the place, he realizes that it would provide him with something important...and he decides to keep it for himself. However, there's a mortgage overdue on the place and unless he drives a mess of cattle to market as soon as possible, he'll lose the place.
But there is a HUGE problem with this plan.... Brown is a nasty jerk and he's excellent at driving away people around him. Soon, it appears he'll practically have to do the cattle drive himself since he's now such a hated man...and rightfully so.
The surliness of Murphy's character is THE major problem with the film. Had he evolved into a better person through the course of the story (as in the two excellent films I mentioned above), it might have worked. Here, on the other hand, he just seems like a jerk with severe constipation or migraine! It does abate a bit through the course of the story...just not enough to make you care about him and his ranch.
