Actor-Producer Randolph Scott and writer-producer Harry Joe Brown collaborated on a number of good westerns. Unfortunately, TEN WANTED MEN is not one of them. You know you're in trouble when the title of the movie makes no sense. Richard Boone has a number of gunmen working for him, but it's never apparent any of them are wanted for anything, though they should be.<br /><br />WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS<br /><br />The movie opens with Scott having engineered a bogus stagecoach robbery, intended as a practical joke. Yet Scott had no way of knowing whether anyone would be hurt. It was a stupid, dangerous thing to do; certainly not the best way to introduce your `hero'.<br /><br />Richard Boone kills Andy Clyde in cold blood, using his gunmen's to lie for him. Yet, there is not even a hearing; and, wouldn't SOMEONE have known Clyde had the money to pay his debt to Boone? <br /><br />Skip Homier and Scott's ranch foreman see Boone's men rustling Scott's cattle. Yet, when Boone says Scott has no witnesses, Scott doesn't challenge him.<br /><br />Homier kills Denver Pyle in self defense, using Leo Gordon's gun. Even though Gordon and Boone's other men are clearly unreliable witnesses and Homier is known not to carry a gun, the sheriff arrests Homier.<br /><br />The editing in TEN WANTED MEN is frequently choppy, never more so than the climactic fight between Scott and Leo Gordon. Scott and Gordon look as if they are jumping around the screen.<br /><br />Dennis Weaver is hit by a bullet coming through a window. From the trajectory of the hole in the glass, Weaver should have been hit in the neck, but Weaver's character is given the old, reliable shoulder wound.<br /><br />Two stunt men drop their horses BEFORE Scott's dynamite explodes.<br /><br />The acting ranges from indifferent to terrible. Scott, as almost always, plays Scott. Even the usually reliable Richard Boone is off his game.<br /><br />Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Lee Van Cleef, Leo Gordon, Denver Pyle. This one should have been a classic. Instead, it's a dog. I give TEN WANTED MEN a `4'. <br /><br />Oh, and matches were invented in 1826.