Gilligan's Island Star Tina Louise Headlined A Bleak '50s Western That Every Genre Fan Has To Watch

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The 1950s and 60s were the era of the classic TV Western and a last hurrah for the traditional Western movie prior to the revisionist era's arrival. As such, if you were a working actor at the time, chances are your filmography was filled with Old West adventures. That was certainly the case for "Gilligan's Island" star Tina Louise, who, prior to playing Ginger Grant on the beloved CBS sitcom, teamed up with Robert Ryan and Burl Ives for the grim Western "Day of the Outlaw."

The 1959 feature was Andre de Toth's final Western film. The Hungarian-born filmmaker moved to the United States via England in 1942, and he remains best known for directing the 1953 3D feature "House of Wax." But he also made his name with multiple films noir and Westerns, working with some of the best Western actors of all time. He directed Joel McCrea in "Ramrod," Gary Cooper in "Springfield Rifle," and Kirk Douglas in "The Indian Fighter." De Toth also worked extensively with Randolph Scott on six Westerns and even lent his talent to small screen oaters (an industry nickname for "Westerns"), directing episodes of James Garner's "Maverick" and Sam Peckinpah's short-lived attempt to make an adult Western series, "The Westerner."

By the end of the 50s, then, de Toth was a well-established Hollywood director with several classics to his name. With "Day of the Outlaw," he delivered one of his most interesting and most underrated Westerns: A film he described (via TCM) as "a story of tension and fear, survival in a prison of snow." As such, after Tina Louise was cast as the love interest and arrived in Oregon for filming, she found herself about as far from the secluded tropical environs of Gilligan's Isle as she could possible get.

Based on Lee Edwin Wells' 1955 novel of the same, "Day of the Outlaw" is one of the great Westerns that's also sadly been mostly forgotten despite its bold departure from many of the standard tropes of the era. For one thing, any late-'50s Western set in a snow-laden landscape immediately stands out. At the time, studios and production companies were churning out oaters set in standard old desert towns. A wintry Western adventure set in Wyoming? That was something different.

That same setting spoke to the film's bleak tone. Robert Ryan's cattleman Blaise Starrett is a hardbitten s.o.b. who doesn't take too kindly to homesteaders putting up barbed wire in the community he co-founded. The suitably-named Bitters, Wyoming is also home to Hal Crane (​​Alan Marshal), the mastermind behind the use of barbed wire as a boundary. Naturally, that makes him Starrett's mortal enemy. Making matters worse, Starrett's old flame, Helen Crane (Tina Louise), is now married to Hal.

This being the Old West, Ryan's cattleman does what anyone would do: plots to murder his rival, even if it costs him the chance to rekindle things with Helen. But before he can do any such thing, Burl Ives' ex-Union Army captain Jack Bruhn and his gang of outlaws ride into town, holding the residents hostage while Bruhn is treated for a recent injury. Suddenly, Ryan and Marshal's bitter enemies must form an alliance to repel the invaders.

"Day of the Outlaw" was Tina Louise's fourth movie role; she made her debut in 1958's "God's Little Acre." In 1959, she appeared in "The Trap" and "The Hangman" as well as "Day of the Outlaw," which remains one of her best early roles, if only because Andre de Toth took such care in making it.

Unsurprisingly, his bleak, noir-tinged Western was met with resistance from United Artists. As the director told author Anthony Slide for his 1996 book "De Toth on De Toth: Putting the Drama in Front of the Camera" (via Turner Classic Movies), "[The producers] didn't understand where I was heading — a sphere I had been exploring for some time: Is it worse being the jailer, instead of the prisoner? Is it worse being incarcerated by white snow in white silence, or by the blankness of black silence? Which of the human flock would fall apart first under the tightening band of their communal deep freeze?" Not exactly your standard shoot-'em-up, then. But that's what makes it such a gem of a film.

After "Day of the Outlaw," Louise continued to land leading lady roles. Before "Gilligan's Island" debuted in 1964, she appeared alongside screen legend Burt Reynolds in "Armored Command." Soon after, Sherwood Schwartz tried to get his sitcom off the ground at CBS, and shot a "Gilligan's Island" pilot which featured Kit Smythe as a version of Ginger. When the pilot went down like a lead balloon, he recast Ginger, and Louise landed what remains her best-known role. Meanwhile, "Day of the Outlaw" remains a great underrated Western you need to watch. Luckily, you can do so for free on Tubi.