The movie was getting a little tedious for me until Victor Sen Yung showed up as the Chinese bartender Chang uttering that great line to Rory Calhoun's Hemp Brown quoted in my summary above. It brought to mind another terrific line from the comedy Western "Blazing Saddles" when Gene Wilder says to Cleavon Little - "What's a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?"
The story here has a bit of the "Branded" TV show story line, in that Lieutenant Hemp Brown is discharged from the Cavalry after his contingent of soldiers is wiped out and an Army payroll strong box is stolen under his command. Convicted of cowardice, Brown puts on his civilian duds and sets out to find the former soldier (John Larch) who ambushed his squad, who was presumed already killed in action some months earlier when his soldier uniform and ID wound up on a corpse. I don't think I've come across that ruse before in a Western.
Brown had his man too until he made a rookie mistake and took his eye off the ball at the Slaughter House. Rory Calhoun's not supposed to make those kinds of errors; I guess he had to take a hit for the sake of the story. But then he makes another one when he goes to sleep in the Bolanos show wagon and Mona (Beverly Garland) grabs his gun. Like I say, the back and forth manner in which Hemp Brown lost and regained the upper hand got a little tedious after a while.
I'll say this for Beverly Garland though, she generally doesn't look as good as she did in this picture and those legs! - man, they went all the way up to there! The red saloon gal outfit helped too, so much so that after a while watching her get ready for the show, Hemp ran out of conversation topics.
The story here has a bit of the "Branded" TV show story line, in that Lieutenant Hemp Brown is discharged from the Cavalry after his contingent of soldiers is wiped out and an Army payroll strong box is stolen under his command. Convicted of cowardice, Brown puts on his civilian duds and sets out to find the former soldier (John Larch) who ambushed his squad, who was presumed already killed in action some months earlier when his soldier uniform and ID wound up on a corpse. I don't think I've come across that ruse before in a Western.
Brown had his man too until he made a rookie mistake and took his eye off the ball at the Slaughter House. Rory Calhoun's not supposed to make those kinds of errors; I guess he had to take a hit for the sake of the story. But then he makes another one when he goes to sleep in the Bolanos show wagon and Mona (Beverly Garland) grabs his gun. Like I say, the back and forth manner in which Hemp Brown lost and regained the upper hand got a little tedious after a while.
I'll say this for Beverly Garland though, she generally doesn't look as good as she did in this picture and those legs! - man, they went all the way up to there! The red saloon gal outfit helped too, so much so that after a while watching her get ready for the show, Hemp ran out of conversation topics.