Lousy, but not without historical interest. Producer Albert Zugsmith, in the midst of some of Douglas Sirk’s best pics, recast the villain of this modern-day Western with Orson Welles as an overbearing cattle baron whose word is law around these parts. A call that led to Welles directing TOUCH OF EVIL/’58 for Zugsmith, his last at a Hollywood studio. Welles, originally hired only to act, wound up helming after co-star Charlton Heston made the suggestion. (Good on you, Chuck!) Here, the lead is Jeff Chandler, shivering in his boots as a small town sheriff duty-bound to investigate the murder of a Mexican laborer at Welles’ big ol’ cattle ranch. Scripter Gene L. Coon (later a regular writer on STAR TREK) makes a half-hearted attempt to bring out similarities to HIGH NOON, but plotting, action & dialogue are so laughably bad director Jack Arnold (of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN/’57), wisely walks thru with eyes half-shut. One nice surprise finds lots of expert supporting players (James Gleason, John Larch, Royal Dano, Paul Fix, William Schallert) to hold your attention when Welles is off screen. Not that he has much to do when on, but Welles holds your attention simply by showing up, for a change, au naturale, without a speck of makeup or nose putty as camouflage. He’s big (other than that undistinguished nose he usually disguised), but oddly normal looking. And you thought he looked like EVIL’s Police Captain Hank Quinlan at the time.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: For a contemporary Hollywood take on border-town/immigrant labor issues, try BORDER INCIDENT/’49 (Anthony Mann/Ricardo Montalban) or, even better, THE LAWLESS/’50 (Joseph Losey/Macdonald Carey). https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/border-incident-1949.html
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