Joel McCrea and two colleagues (James Whitmore, Barry Sullivan) are Confederate prisoners who escape from a Union POW camp and hook up with a faction of the notorious Quantrill's Raiders in Missouri and join a plot to ambush a Union wagon train hauling gold from New Mexico to St. Louis.
This is one of McCrea's lesser efforts, although MGM put a lot of money and glitz into it. Barry Sullivan is wildly miscast as a roguish New Orleans playboy, Arlene Dahl has nothing to do but stand around, look gorgeous--which she does extremely well--and let Sullivan and McCrea fight over her. Ted DeCorsia, one of the great movie heavies, was occasionally cast in westerns, but never really fit in--he was the personification of a bad-ass New York tough guy and he just couldn't escape that--and here he plays one of Quantrill's gang who accompanies the trio to New Mexico to keep an eye on them while they worm their way into the wagon train. For some unfathomable reason, he simply vanishes about halfway through the picture--he's sent back to notify the raiders that the wagon train is on the way and he's never seen again. Also, much is made early in the picture about Whitmore's back injury and he's even shown falling off his horse because of the pain, but then he makes a sudden and apparently miraculous recovery, because nothing more is said of it and he spends the rest of the picture running around, dancing and fighting. These holes in the script aren't really major flaws, but indicative of how sloppy this picture can get.
The direction by MGM vet Roy Rowland is sluggish--westerns weren't really his specialty--and the script is pretty predictable. Whitmore gives it his best, as he always does, but McCrea doesn't seem to have his heart in it and pretty much sleepwalks through the picture, though he does come alive in a few scenes. Sullivan could play a slick, fast- talking, double-crossing con artist with the best of them, but he just looks out of place here.
It's a fair-to-almost-middling western, and if you're a McCrea fan I guess you'll like it a lot more than I did, but it's really nothing to write home about.
This is one of McCrea's lesser efforts, although MGM put a lot of money and glitz into it. Barry Sullivan is wildly miscast as a roguish New Orleans playboy, Arlene Dahl has nothing to do but stand around, look gorgeous--which she does extremely well--and let Sullivan and McCrea fight over her. Ted DeCorsia, one of the great movie heavies, was occasionally cast in westerns, but never really fit in--he was the personification of a bad-ass New York tough guy and he just couldn't escape that--and here he plays one of Quantrill's gang who accompanies the trio to New Mexico to keep an eye on them while they worm their way into the wagon train. For some unfathomable reason, he simply vanishes about halfway through the picture--he's sent back to notify the raiders that the wagon train is on the way and he's never seen again. Also, much is made early in the picture about Whitmore's back injury and he's even shown falling off his horse because of the pain, but then he makes a sudden and apparently miraculous recovery, because nothing more is said of it and he spends the rest of the picture running around, dancing and fighting. These holes in the script aren't really major flaws, but indicative of how sloppy this picture can get.
The direction by MGM vet Roy Rowland is sluggish--westerns weren't really his specialty--and the script is pretty predictable. Whitmore gives it his best, as he always does, but McCrea doesn't seem to have his heart in it and pretty much sleepwalks through the picture, though he does come alive in a few scenes. Sullivan could play a slick, fast- talking, double-crossing con artist with the best of them, but he just looks out of place here.
It's a fair-to-almost-middling western, and if you're a McCrea fan I guess you'll like it a lot more than I did, but it's really nothing to write home about.