Tension between the two main protagonists is established early in this story, as Lorn Warfield (Glenn Ford) returns home after a lengthy absence, only to be told by Owen Forbes (Arthur Kennedy) that his wife and two daughters were attacked and taken hostage by Apaches. Complicating matters, Forbes tells Warfield that his wife had already given him up for dead, and that he was about to marry her in a week's time. Not the sort of news one expects to hear upon returning home.
If I were casting this film I think I would have reversed the roles of two of the supporting players. Royal Dano could usually be found playing less than savory characters, so seeing him here as a doctor treating cholera victims was a new one on me. I thought he would have been better suited to portray the part of the pretend crazy guy, Jimmy Noble. He had already taken on a similar role in a first season episode of 'The Rebel' TV series when he played a coward holed up in an abandoned fort, surviving only because Indians pay no mind to the mentally infirm. The title of that show was 'Yellow Hair' if you care to look it up. In any event, Dean Jagger acquitted himself well as the nutty Noble.
It goes without saying that Warfield and Owens succeed in their mission, though as others on this board have rightly noted, the rescue of Angie Warfield (Barbara Babcock) and her two daughters occurred without the slightest of hitches amid a fully armed camp of hostile Apaches. The 'evil gun' connection doesn't come into play until the very end of the story when shopkeeper Wilford (Parley Baer) accepts Warfield's holstered weapon in exchange for new dresses for the freed women. Right before gunning down the aggrieved Owens about to shoot his defenseless partner and rival, Wilford manages to answer his own rhetorical question - "I'll never know how one man can kill another".
If I were casting this film I think I would have reversed the roles of two of the supporting players. Royal Dano could usually be found playing less than savory characters, so seeing him here as a doctor treating cholera victims was a new one on me. I thought he would have been better suited to portray the part of the pretend crazy guy, Jimmy Noble. He had already taken on a similar role in a first season episode of 'The Rebel' TV series when he played a coward holed up in an abandoned fort, surviving only because Indians pay no mind to the mentally infirm. The title of that show was 'Yellow Hair' if you care to look it up. In any event, Dean Jagger acquitted himself well as the nutty Noble.
It goes without saying that Warfield and Owens succeed in their mission, though as others on this board have rightly noted, the rescue of Angie Warfield (Barbara Babcock) and her two daughters occurred without the slightest of hitches amid a fully armed camp of hostile Apaches. The 'evil gun' connection doesn't come into play until the very end of the story when shopkeeper Wilford (Parley Baer) accepts Warfield's holstered weapon in exchange for new dresses for the freed women. Right before gunning down the aggrieved Owens about to shoot his defenseless partner and rival, Wilford manages to answer his own rhetorical question - "I'll never know how one man can kill another".