Dark, brooding, exceptional Western with Joel McCrea & Veronica Lake on the same side of a showdown between violent free-range cattlemen & sheep herders. Sheriff Donald Crisp, playing everything strictly by the book, just manages to keep order, but he’s losing control of Preston Foster & his ranchers. That’s when Lake, behind McCrea’s back, makes a dirty move of her own, ordering up a self-inflicted first strike then laying the blame on Foster & his men. But the dodge blows up in her face starting a new, even deadlier level of tit–for-tat violence with murders and a possible shooting war. Director André De Toth & lenser Russell Harlan get the most out of these conflicted characters, and even manage to make the usually lackluster Don DeFore shine as McCrea’s wrong-side-of-the-law pal. (Or is it just that DeFore looks trimmer & younger than remembered?)
DOUBLE-BILL: The Western took a turn toward greater complexity in ‘47, or did for famous one-eyed directors like De Toth & Raoul Walsh in the psychologically-minded PURSUED.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Joel McCrea really towers over petite Veronica Lake who looks frail, almost brittle, like a Dresden Porcelain figurine. That’d be fine is her acting weren’t equally frail.
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