Review of One Foot in Hell

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I went to see this movie in 1961, when I was fourteen, and I thought it was an excellent psychological Western with an offbeat theme. Alan Ladd plays a hate-crazed ex-Confederate who takes a violent revenge on the townsfolk of Blue Springs, Arizona, whose initial indifferance led to his wife dying in childbirth when they first arrived in the town. The townspeople are contrite, doing all they can to make amends...even giving Ladd the job of Deputy Sheriff. But secretly, Ladd is full of hatred for them and, while out hunting rustlers with the Sheriff, he murders him in cold blood and, bringing his body back to town, blames the outlaws for the killing. Now, the townsfolk make him Sheriff and he sets about forming a gang in nearby Royce City to help him rob the Blue Springs bank of $100,000, kill all those he blames for his wife's death, and burn the town to the ground. Two of the gang (Don Murray and Dolores Michaels), left to look after the gang's log cabin hideout, fall in love and want no part in the plans. After the raid is over, Ladd guns down the other gang members (Dan O'Herlihy and Barry Coe) and goes after the lovers, intent on killing them, too. A terrific fight ensues between Ladd and Murray and Ladd is killed. Hoping the town will forgive them, Murray and Michaels take the stolen money back to Blue Springs. Although Ladd is unusually convincing as a baddie, the film really belongs to Murray and Michaels. Their romantic scenes together on the banks of a sunlit woodland stream are beautifully played against a haunting score by Dominic Frontiere. If the film has a message, it must be that hatred is like an acid. It will eat into your soul and kill you before you die.