If you're interested in a 1957 Randolph Scott Western, this may be what you're looking for. It's reassuringly routine. There are virtually no surprises. This is a fixed point in a changing and disappointing universe.
Scott and two friends (Garner and Jones) are just mustered out of the US Army and are jumped and robbed outside of the town of Medicine Bend. They adopt the dun clothing of the members of a local religious cult and pose as members of the sect while they investigate the town and try to find the thieves.
They discover that the town is run by one corrupt gang and its leader, Craig, who have stolen everything from migrants passing through on their way to greener pastures. Scott steals it all back, routs the gang, restores the town to a state of probity, and continues on his way West, with Angie Dickinson at his side.
It's interesting to see Scott in masquerade, wearing his "Quaker" hat and saying "thee" and "thou", though never without a slight smirk. There are a couple of incidents of interest too. At the climax, in a mano a mano fist fight with the mastermind -- the kind of fight Scott always wins -- he gets knocked unconscious. That's curious in itself. But then the director explicitly shows us a ripped-open bean sack on the balcony spilling its seeds onto the metal tops of a couple of empty cans and the sound is that of a small hailstorm. It has nothing to do with the plot. The director, Richard Bare, probably indulged his whim to film what looked like a cinematically interesting flow of beans onto metal -- and it nicely breaks up the series of easily predicted actions. Good for him.
In the same fight, the ritual always requires the bad guy to pick up a piece of furniture or something to use as a weapon and play dirty pool. Craig picks up a rifle but it misfires. Then he pulls from the wall a gigantic SCYTHE suitable for use by the Grim Reaper, Father Time, or Chronus himself, and takes a roundhouse swing at Scott's head. Alas, he misses and perishes by the scythe.
Scott and two friends (Garner and Jones) are just mustered out of the US Army and are jumped and robbed outside of the town of Medicine Bend. They adopt the dun clothing of the members of a local religious cult and pose as members of the sect while they investigate the town and try to find the thieves.
They discover that the town is run by one corrupt gang and its leader, Craig, who have stolen everything from migrants passing through on their way to greener pastures. Scott steals it all back, routs the gang, restores the town to a state of probity, and continues on his way West, with Angie Dickinson at his side.
It's interesting to see Scott in masquerade, wearing his "Quaker" hat and saying "thee" and "thou", though never without a slight smirk. There are a couple of incidents of interest too. At the climax, in a mano a mano fist fight with the mastermind -- the kind of fight Scott always wins -- he gets knocked unconscious. That's curious in itself. But then the director explicitly shows us a ripped-open bean sack on the balcony spilling its seeds onto the metal tops of a couple of empty cans and the sound is that of a small hailstorm. It has nothing to do with the plot. The director, Richard Bare, probably indulged his whim to film what looked like a cinematically interesting flow of beans onto metal -- and it nicely breaks up the series of easily predicted actions. Good for him.
In the same fight, the ritual always requires the bad guy to pick up a piece of furniture or something to use as a weapon and play dirty pool. Craig picks up a rifle but it misfires. Then he pulls from the wall a gigantic SCYTHE suitable for use by the Grim Reaper, Father Time, or Chronus himself, and takes a roundhouse swing at Scott's head. Alas, he misses and perishes by the scythe.