You know that a westernor any movie for that matteris in trouble when its title has nothing whatsoever to do with its storyline. "Gun Battle at Monterey" qualifies as an uneven, below-average oater about revenge that never delivers its titular fireworks. Ostensibly, this low-budget, black & white, Allied Artists' western turns out to be a lesson in good citizenship. You see, the hero changes his mind in the end about the fate of a two-timing outlaw because his pretty girlfriend persuades him not to sink to the outlaw's level. Not only is "Gun Battle at Monterey" unconvincing in its reversal ending, but also co-directors Sidney Franklin, Jr., and Carl K. Hittleman of the abysmal "Kentucky Rifle" leave out important scenes that would have bolstered the quality of their western. Sterling Hayden, Ted de Corsia, and Lee Van Cleef deserved a better script than the one that Jack ("The Narrow Margin") Leonard and TV western scribe Lawrence Resner contrived.<br /><br />This lackluster western opens with bearded Max Reno (Ted de Corsia of "Captain Pirate") and Jay Turner (Sterling Hayden of "Top Gun") riding off the beaten trail down onto the beach at Monterey to hide out in a cave with the loot that they have stolen from the Monterey Express Company. Incredibly, we never learn how much they hauled off from the hold-up. Reno boasts about his foresight in having found the cave a month before the robbery. Nevertheless, Jay isn't impressed by Reno. According to the Leonard & Resner screenplay, Max met a penniless Turner in Monterey and offered him $5-thousand dollars to help him rob the express company. Early on directors Franklin and Hittleman establish Jay as a decent sort of fellow who strayed onto the wrong side of the law through circumstances not entirely of his own making. When Jay demands his money and refuses later to stick on as Max's partner, Max puts three bullets in his back. Jay plunges into the ocean and washes up on the beach long after Max has hightailed it with the loot to greater pastures. A Mexican girl, Maria Salvador (seasoned television actress Pamela Duncan), takes pity on poor bullet-riddled Jay and nurses him back to health despite her father's fears about Jay. Meanwhile, Monterey authorities find Jay's vest with two bullet holes in it on the beach (yes, the two bullet holes don't match the three shots fired) and they add murder to Max's robbery charge.<br /><br />Four weeks or thereabouts elapse before Jay recuperates sufficiently to hit the trail after Max, and it takes our determined protagonist around a year to locate the double-crossing dastard. During that time, Max has done well for himself. He rides into Del Ray and wins ownership of a saloon when its proprietor, Abbot (Fred Sherman of "The Left-Handed Gun"),cannot pay off his gambling losses. Reluctantly, Abbot agrees to take Max on as a partner, but they quarrel over importing dancehall girls. Abbot complains that he won't lower his standards. Abbot's right-hand gunman, Kirby (Lee Van Cleef of "Barquero"), stands by and watches Max badger Abbot into a gunfight. The town sheriff Claude Mundy (Charles Cane of "No Name on a Bullet") accepts Max's plea that he shot Abbot down in self-defense. By the time that Jay rides into Del Ray masquerading as somebody else entirely, Max has the town in his hip pocket. Max is initially suspicious when Jay appears and takes sides with the downtrodden citizens, especially a crusading journalist that Kirby had earlier beaten up. Max sends one of his girls, Cleo (Mary Beth Hughes of "Design for Scandal"), to see if she can root the truth out about Jay. Eventually, Jay beats up Kirby and throws him in the hoosegow. The honest citizens of Del Ray hire him as their deputy sheriff but are shocked when he refuses to let them lynch Max. Instead, Jay takes Max back to Monterey to pick up the reward on him, and watch him hang for his murder. Nobody ever got a solid description of Jay during the robbery so he can ride confidently into town and turn Max over to law without any worry. The interval between the time that they leave Del Ray and reach Monterey is a pre-journey of hardship in the tradition of Sergio Leone's later "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Finally, once Jay has turned in Max, he rides back to Maria. She convinces him that he is doing the wrong thing, so he goes back to town and gives himself up. Maria assured him that she would wait for him. Max roars with laughter at Jay's decision to turn himself in and forgives him for his deception. Angrily, Jay punches out Max and the movie ends.<br /><br />"Gun Battle at Monterey" suffers from the use of obvious back projection that undercuts a romantic scene on the beach between Jay and Maria. Presumably, the thunderous sounds of the tide crashing on the shore must have drowned out every attempt to record the dialogue on the location, so the filmmakers repaired to the quiet confines of the studio. When Franklin and Hittleman venture out onto the actual desert or beach locations, this oater looks both scenic and rugged. Unfortunately, the villains aren't much of a challenge as Jay gets all too easily out of a scrape with two gunman who have him digging his own grave. This otherwise disposable 69-minute western earns some points for its scenes along the Monterey beach that anticipated similar scenes in Marlon Brando's later revenge western "One-Eyed Jacks." Lee Van Cleef gives a persuasively pugnacious performance as Max's right-hand gunman, while Ted de Corsia is given enough evil things to do to qualify as a thorough-going villain.