Tightly acted and directed Western with outstanding performances from Jeff Chandler and Fess Parker.
The latter is the conscience, and Parker is terrific as the guiding force who proves effective at carrying out a difficult task while maintaining his humanity in a war-scarred environment. He lifts his screen game from the aw-shucks, King of the Wild Frontier character to legit leading man.
This is the best I've seen from Chandler, always a capable and gifted performer. Here, he holds firm to the ruthless power-monger of his Darcy character while speaking about, and occasionally showing, his human side.
So many Westerns are black versus white, good v. evil. This one gets into the gray areas, actually spends most of its 1:40 run time in the gray. I expected a B-movie, instead saw a solid A effort with a special nod to Melvin Frank, who directed and was part of the writing team.
It's a Western that shakes off the dust and sets down the six-guns, if you dig deep and think about it.
The latter is the conscience, and Parker is terrific as the guiding force who proves effective at carrying out a difficult task while maintaining his humanity in a war-scarred environment. He lifts his screen game from the aw-shucks, King of the Wild Frontier character to legit leading man.
This is the best I've seen from Chandler, always a capable and gifted performer. Here, he holds firm to the ruthless power-monger of his Darcy character while speaking about, and occasionally showing, his human side.
So many Westerns are black versus white, good v. evil. This one gets into the gray areas, actually spends most of its 1:40 run time in the gray. I expected a B-movie, instead saw a solid A effort with a special nod to Melvin Frank, who directed and was part of the writing team.
It's a Western that shakes off the dust and sets down the six-guns, if you dig deep and think about it.