An unfairly unsung western,almost completely devoid of violence ,of fights,of your average western clichés;the subject is the second chance ,the free will,without preachy moral.A subject Delmer Daves would resume in "the last wagon" in the fifties.
This is to my knowledge the only western in which bullets are used to relieve the suffering:this scene where Joel McCrea opens them to get the sulfur ,his struggle against diphtheria ,injecting more tenderness you might think possible when he talks to the sick children are among the most moving in the western genre .
The female part (played by Frances Dee who has wonderful eyes) is not decorative:as a nurse,whose duty is to heal the pain,she shows Ewan the way when she calls him coward before leaving him:had the hero not met her,he would probably have ignored the dying family and gone his way.
The rock gives this tale a legendary side ;Ross becomes a legend in his own time .Oddly ,the following year,Joel McCrea would play another character ("Colorado Territory" ,Raoul Walsh)whose (tragic) legendary tale is told by a priest.
This is to my knowledge the only western in which bullets are used to relieve the suffering:this scene where Joel McCrea opens them to get the sulfur ,his struggle against diphtheria ,injecting more tenderness you might think possible when he talks to the sick children are among the most moving in the western genre .
The female part (played by Frances Dee who has wonderful eyes) is not decorative:as a nurse,whose duty is to heal the pain,she shows Ewan the way when she calls him coward before leaving him:had the hero not met her,he would probably have ignored the dying family and gone his way.
The rock gives this tale a legendary side ;Ross becomes a legend in his own time .Oddly ,the following year,Joel McCrea would play another character ("Colorado Territory" ,Raoul Walsh)whose (tragic) legendary tale is told by a priest.