With lots of intricate subordinate plot in the overall probably familiar tale of a tough town tamer, this script by N.B. Stone, Jr., and Richard Wilson is very well served by an excellent cast, led by Robert Mitchum.
Jan Sterling, a superlative actress not often enough given a character to show her talent, is second billed as a strong and tough woman who chaperones her female charges, who only dance and entertain, but who are seen by the blue-nosed women of the town as something worse.
Karen Sharpe, who has never looked prettier, very girl-next-door-ish, plays the daughter of the town blacksmith who is also the town leader.
The daughter is conflicted but her father, played beautifully by Emile Meyer, is not.
One of the glories of this excellent motion picture is the number of other characters -- I hesitate to say "minor" because they all figure in the story -- whose lives and actions are pivotal.
By one of those coincidences, I just finished a novel by Louis L'Amour with a very similar plot, except the town tamer in "The Empty Land" really doesn't want his role while Mitchum's Clint Tollinger does.
This might be the best script for a movie I've ever watched about a town tamer. It has depth and darkness and a realism not often found in Westerns of the 1950s era. Excellent script and excellent cast make this a movie I recommend.
And you can see it at YouTube. When I watched, it was interrupted by too many commercials, but that's a fairly low price to see it.
Jan Sterling, a superlative actress not often enough given a character to show her talent, is second billed as a strong and tough woman who chaperones her female charges, who only dance and entertain, but who are seen by the blue-nosed women of the town as something worse.
Karen Sharpe, who has never looked prettier, very girl-next-door-ish, plays the daughter of the town blacksmith who is also the town leader.
The daughter is conflicted but her father, played beautifully by Emile Meyer, is not.
One of the glories of this excellent motion picture is the number of other characters -- I hesitate to say "minor" because they all figure in the story -- whose lives and actions are pivotal.
By one of those coincidences, I just finished a novel by Louis L'Amour with a very similar plot, except the town tamer in "The Empty Land" really doesn't want his role while Mitchum's Clint Tollinger does.
This might be the best script for a movie I've ever watched about a town tamer. It has depth and darkness and a realism not often found in Westerns of the 1950s era. Excellent script and excellent cast make this a movie I recommend.
And you can see it at YouTube. When I watched, it was interrupted by too many commercials, but that's a fairly low price to see it.