In The Fastest Gun Alive (1956), one of the most memorable moments isn’t a gunfight but a dance. Actor Russ Tamblyn, only 21 at the time, performs a remarkable acrobatic routine known as the “shovel dance.”
In the film, Tamblyn plays Eddie, a young townsman eager to prove himself. When the community gathers at a local barn dance, he suddenly takes the floor, grabs a shovel as a prop, and launches into an energetic number. He flips, leaps, and spins with extraordinary athleticism, balancing and dancing with the shovel as though it were a partner.
Glenn Ford assumed the number would be the kind of brief musical interlude that often appeared in musicals but when he saw Tamblyn’s extraordinary routine, he was astonished. Ford, who was married to esteemed tap dancer and actress Eleanor Powell, was fond of dance numbers but felt Tamblyn’s number was out of place in the film.
As Tamblyn later recalled Ford said “This is a little western here and this guy is coming in and trying to do a Donald O’Connor all over the walls.” Ford tried to get the number cut from the film and it was said to have been cut from the preview but the credits still contained a reference to Russ Tamblyn’s dance number and the audience demanded to see it.
The number was reinserted into the picture and ended up being one of the highlights of the film.
Russ Tamblyn, known for his roles as an actor who could also dance, was not formally trained in dance but had a background in tumbling and acrobatics. He considered himself an “actor who danced,” and this is evident in the raw, dynamic, and physical nature of his performances, including the “shovel dance” and his famous roles in musicals like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and West Side Story (1961).
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