Just before the start of the Civil War a southern gunfighter annex gambler comes to Denver and stirs things up, shoots some people and falls in love with 2 women.
It sounds as the typical outline for a 50's western and that's exactly what this is. Only it just doesn't seem to work this time. First and foremost there is the main character played by Robert Stack. He may be quick on the trigger, handsome and so on but he sure ain't very likable and that remains so mainly all through the movie.
He gambles and wins by cheating (thanks to some smart card dealing from Ruth Roman) a whole lot of money and the complete saloon. No wonder the former owner (Raymond Burr) is quite angry. Then he starts another scheme by dealing out gold digging claims to some local folk but he wants 50 % of all the earnings. Right, this will work out fine. Things go wrong almost immediately as he kills one of the diggers who refuses to hand his share. To make it up somehow he takes care of young son of the gold digger, a very annoying kid as in most US fifties movies. In the end Stack then somehow redeems himself by turning to the Southern cause (?).
Stack does his best but he sure ain't no John Wayne or James Stewart who would have given the role some humour and some extra sympathy. The rest of the cast ain't very good either, most of them hamming it up (there's a lot of shouting in this movie).
Mind you, this role might well have suited Stack for his next two movies, both directed by Douglas Sirk, where he plays some really nasty characters and does it quite convincing.
There's also Virginia Mayo, still very attractive and we even get a bathtub scene but that's about all there is to her role.
So overall this movie is not exactly a classic despite some good photography and the otherwise very able director Jacques Tourneur at the helm. It would be his last western.
It sounds as the typical outline for a 50's western and that's exactly what this is. Only it just doesn't seem to work this time. First and foremost there is the main character played by Robert Stack. He may be quick on the trigger, handsome and so on but he sure ain't very likable and that remains so mainly all through the movie.
He gambles and wins by cheating (thanks to some smart card dealing from Ruth Roman) a whole lot of money and the complete saloon. No wonder the former owner (Raymond Burr) is quite angry. Then he starts another scheme by dealing out gold digging claims to some local folk but he wants 50 % of all the earnings. Right, this will work out fine. Things go wrong almost immediately as he kills one of the diggers who refuses to hand his share. To make it up somehow he takes care of young son of the gold digger, a very annoying kid as in most US fifties movies. In the end Stack then somehow redeems himself by turning to the Southern cause (?).
Stack does his best but he sure ain't no John Wayne or James Stewart who would have given the role some humour and some extra sympathy. The rest of the cast ain't very good either, most of them hamming it up (there's a lot of shouting in this movie).
Mind you, this role might well have suited Stack for his next two movies, both directed by Douglas Sirk, where he plays some really nasty characters and does it quite convincing.
There's also Virginia Mayo, still very attractive and we even get a bathtub scene but that's about all there is to her role.
So overall this movie is not exactly a classic despite some good photography and the otherwise very able director Jacques Tourneur at the helm. It would be his last western.