Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Heller with a Gun by Louis L'Amour Heller in Pink Tights. Based on a Louis L'Amour novel, Heller in Pink Tights struts onto the screen with a sass and shimmy that shows how the West was fun! and Anthony Quinn play members of the Healy Dramatic Co., an itinerant theatrical troupe struggling to stay one step ahead of the bill collector as it travels from mining camps to cowtowns. Come sleet, snow, or hail of bullets, the Healy show must go on! And go on it does in this witty, colorful romp directed by (My Fair Lady) and scripted by () and Walter Bernstein (Semi- Tough). Musings. “Out here a gun is a tool. Men use them when they have to. I know what King Mabry is like because my father was like that.” Dodie touched her hair lightly here and there. “Where there’s no law, all the strength can’t be left in the hands of the lawless, so good men use guns, too.” I am grateful to Mr. L ’Amour as he was one of my earliest entries into the genre. Many of his tales are stick-to-the ribs affairs that hit the marks I most often look for in the Western. Morality tales with a bit of heft to them, the environment [land and weather] as a strong character, and a bit of scoutcraft ladled in here and there. One of Mr. L’Amour’s servings of scoutcraft. “You never look into a fire, King,” she said curiously. “Don’t you like to?” “It isn’t safe out here. A man should keep his eyes accustomed to darkness. If he suddenly leaves a fire after staring into it, he’s blind…and maybe dead.” Here’s the author on his editorial horse [a horse I agree with btw.] They tried to judge a wild, untamed country by the standards of elm-bordered streets and convention-bordered lives. As I said, I am grateful to the author for being my starting point, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t say that with each subsequent novel of his I step into I feel that I am reading another draft of, say, Hondo . Yes, drafts of a prior novel that I enjoyed, in some cases tremendously, but there is a marked sameness to much of Mr. L’Amour’s output. One gets the feelings that you could remove character names and find staggeringly similar passages as in the above quoted ones in a score of his novels. None of this is to say that the author is unskilled. Good Lord, not that at all. I agree with his son, Beau, that there are works in his “Adventure Stories” volume that are remarkable, easily on par with a contemporary of Hemingway. In these stories one gets the feeling that this is where the author really wanted to go, but found the Western market is what buttered his bread, so he turned an able hand to it. An able hand that turned out many a fine tale, but…to this reader at least, the more I sample these wares the more I ask, “ Have I read this one already?” If you are a reader who doers not mind re-reading a favorite book [I am not that sort] you will find Heller With a Gun a solid performance. If you like to see an author buck against the corral and try new things, well, … Heller with a Gun. Tom Healy was in trouble. His theatrical troupe needed to get to Alder Gulch, Montana, and the weather was turning. Andy Barker promised Tom he could get them there safely, but Tom was reluctant to trust him: he had the lives of three actresses to consider, and his personal feelings for Janice further heightened his concern. Then King Mabry showed up. Although Tom didn​t like the way he looked at Janice, he could see that Mabry made Barker uneasy. So Tom invited Mabry to join them. Tom was right to be worried, because Barker had a plan. He knew that the wagons carried something more than actors and scenery. He and his men were going to steal it any way they could. And that included murder. Heller with a Gun. Tom Healy was in trouble. His theatrical troupe needed to get to Alder Gulch, Montana, and the weather was turning. Andy Barker promised Tom he could get them there safely, but Tom was reluctant to trust him: he had the lives of three actresses to consider, and his personal feelings for Janice further heightened his concern. Then King Mabry showed up. Although Tom didn’t like the way he looked at Janice, he could see that Mabry made Barker uneasy. So Tom invited Mabry to join them. Tom was right to be worried, because Barker had a plan. He knew that the wagons carried something more than actors and scenery. He and his men were going to steal it any way they could. And that included murder. Heller with a Gun (1955) Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. King Mabry is a man who is handy with his guns but also a man with sensitivity and caring. When he was hired to carry a large amount of money to a ranch and after killing a bushwhacker who was after the money, he finds his way to Hat Creek Station. A winter storm is raging and he finds a theatre group holding up there. They are planning there trip to Alder with a guide that Mabry does not trust. Mabry continues on to his destination but eventually plans to return and follow the group which he does. It becomes a battle between Mabry and the outlaw leader Baker to save the three women and two men of the theatre group. Add some Sioux renegades who want the white man's women, horses and guns to the mix and you have one fast moving adventure story. Also keep in mind that much of the action takes place in snow storms with temperatures as low as 40 below.