"The Proud Ones" is a fairly exciting story. The trouble is that you can confuse it with a good many other westerns. They have put in some of those ready-made characters that make it look like a lampoon on westerns.

Take those two hired killers who are out to do away with Marshal Robert Ryan. One is a scar-faced American, the other a sadistic Mexican. These gunslingers titillate instead of terrorize. Killers, in color and CinemaScope in this case, aren't supposed to make you laugh.

This is a tale of the transformation of a quiet Kansas town with the arrival of the first trail herd from Texas accompanied by a saloonkeeper who is an old enemy of the marshal and a cowboy out to avenge what he believes is the ruthless killing of his father by that marshal.

The action, if not the suspense, is plentiful. Mr. Ryan and Jeffrey Hunter, as the cowboy, handle their guns well. Walter Brennan's jailer is a delight. And those pioneer days must have been something, what with Flat Rock's leading restaurant proclaiming "All you can eat for 50 cents."