"The Young Land" is a western set immediately after California is ceded from Mexico to the United States following the Mexican-American War. Most westerns are usually set in the late 19th century...this one is in 1848. The story essentially is whether or not American justice applies to everyone, as a young punk (Dennis Hopper) kills a Mexican-American man for kicks...and he assumes no court will convict him nor will anyone care...since the victim was 'one of them'.
The appointed judge (Dan O'Herlihy) is a stickler for the law and for proper procedure...which is problematic because he only has a local sheriff (Patrick Wayne) and a US Marshall to assist him....and there are many Mexican-American vaqueros ('cowboys') and American cowboys who are bent on their own form of justice. You have no idea what's going to happen until the end...and it's a very tense setting.
As a former US History teacher, I appreciate the setting and plot. I didn't appreciate the historical inaccuracies. They are not horrible inaccuracies, but folks just didn't run around shooting each other with revolvers back in 1848. First, shootouts like you see in the film were incredibly rare. Second, at this time, revolvers of any type were exceptionally rare...only having been invented shortly before this. The same can be said for the lever action rifle used at the end...it wasn't available until about 1860. Most of the guns they use in the film were all of much later models than 1848. Now this doesn't destroy the film...it just makes it annoying for us ex-teachers. And, it could be worse, as in "The Alamo" (1960) there were TONS of repeating pistols and rifles...none of which had yet been invented!
The direction is good and the acting quite good despite there being no 'names' in the story for 1959. Dennis Hopper is great as the scummy villain...but he was definitely an unknown at the time. This is even more the case with Patrick Wayne, John Wayne's son, who plays the lead....he's good and handsome but like Hopper he added little to the film's marketability and most people wondered who the heck these folks were! Still, they were very good....and O'Herlihy as well.
By the way, while he may not have looked it, Wayne was an interesting choice in this film about race relations and prejudice, as in real life Patrick's mother was a Mexican-American and father the famous American icon.