Heller in Pink Tights

This oddball 1960 Western, based on a Louis L'Amour novel, has a fascinating pedigree. The screenplay was co-written by Walter Bernstein (Fail Safe), who was blacklisted in Hollywood during the heyday of the House Un-American Activities Committee; the legendary Carlo Ponti (Blow-Up) produced; and Hollywood Golden Age director George Cukor (The Philadelphia Story) was perhaps slightly out of place at the directing helm. Ponti's wife, Sophia Loren, co-stars as Angela Rossini, leading lady of a moth-eaten, traveling theatrical company held together by founder Tom Healy (a miscast Anthony Quinn). On the run from creditors, the troupe stops in a Wyoming town, where a hired gunman named Mabry (Steve Forrest) "wins" Angela in a poker game. Determined to keep her even as he struggles to elude assassins sent by a former employer, Mabry provides protection to Healy and company through hostile Indian territory. All is eventually resolved in a strange final act, set in a new theater that Angela has built for Tom with stolen money. Awkward and leaden despite its impressive lineage, Heller in Pink Tights bows on DVD with a so-so transfer, and no extras. Not a necessary purchase. (T. Keogh)