Interesting to speculate what might have happened if the Jack Bruhn gang never showed up. Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) was creating a lot of resentment with his insistence on putting a stop to the fencing on open range land. Given his demeanor, the thought occurred to me that the town of Bitters might have been named after him. Had it gone that way, the story might have been just as grim as the one we got to see.
I'm still not used to seeing Burl Ives in a Western setting, even though he's appeared in a number of them. Often as a villain too, as in 1958's "The Big Country". I guess I was too conditioned as a kid by his voicing Sam the Snowman in the TV movie "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"; that's where I think I first became aware of him. I think the story could have used a better explained rationale for the hold he had over his fellow band of thugs and cutthroats. They all stood down when he made it a point, but after a while I began to question why they were so afraid of him.
The one casting surprise in the story for me was that of David Nelson as the young outlaw Gene who had an eye for town girl Ernine (Venetia Stevenson). Brother Rick appeared in a few but this is the first time I've seen David in any vehicle other than his parents' TV series.
Where the film departs from a more conventional dynamic occurs in the latter part of the story when Ryan's character leads the outlaw bunch on a death march with the complicity of their leader Bruhn, who at that point pretty much knew that he was dying of a bullet wound. Starrett's only hope of making it out alive is borne out when the gang members start taking each other out in an expanded take on "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre".
With as many Westerns as I've seen, this is the first one that graphically depicts what a difficult time a horse can have trying to walk through a couple feet of snow. It's obviously not that easy, and something Blaise Starrett might have considered when he stated to Bruhn at one point while on the trek - "None of us are gonna make it".
I'm still not used to seeing Burl Ives in a Western setting, even though he's appeared in a number of them. Often as a villain too, as in 1958's "The Big Country". I guess I was too conditioned as a kid by his voicing Sam the Snowman in the TV movie "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"; that's where I think I first became aware of him. I think the story could have used a better explained rationale for the hold he had over his fellow band of thugs and cutthroats. They all stood down when he made it a point, but after a while I began to question why they were so afraid of him.
The one casting surprise in the story for me was that of David Nelson as the young outlaw Gene who had an eye for town girl Ernine (Venetia Stevenson). Brother Rick appeared in a few but this is the first time I've seen David in any vehicle other than his parents' TV series.
Where the film departs from a more conventional dynamic occurs in the latter part of the story when Ryan's character leads the outlaw bunch on a death march with the complicity of their leader Bruhn, who at that point pretty much knew that he was dying of a bullet wound. Starrett's only hope of making it out alive is borne out when the gang members start taking each other out in an expanded take on "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre".
With as many Westerns as I've seen, this is the first one that graphically depicts what a difficult time a horse can have trying to walk through a couple feet of snow. It's obviously not that easy, and something Blaise Starrett might have considered when he stated to Bruhn at one point while on the trek - "None of us are gonna make it".