Main Cast: Joel McCrea, Barbara Hale, Brad Dexter, Gloria Talbott, Verna Felton
Release Year: 1956
Country: US
Run Time: 80 minutes
Plot
Joel McCrea stars in this leisurely paced Western from Allied Artists (formerly Monogram) originally released in Cinemascope. Having lost his wife in childbirth en route to California, Dr. John Brighton (McCrea) builds a new home for himself and his baby daughter in an Oklahoma backwater town, lodging with kindhearted Mrs. Fitzgerald (Esther Dale). As the town grows up around him, Brighton becomes a well-respected local medico, championing the rights of the area's Indian population when nasty rancher Cass Dobie attempts to buy them out cheap. Unbeknownst to the townspeople, Dobie has discovered oil on the land belonging to Charlie Smith (Michael Pate), whose beautiful daughter, Maria (Gloria Talbott), is working as little Louise Brighton's (Laurie Mitchell) nursemaid. When Charlie is forced to kill Cass' brother, Mel (Douglas Dick), in self-defense, Cass vows revenge. Aided by female rancher Anne Barnes (Barbara Hale), Brighton learns about the discovery of oil and there is a final confrontation on main street. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Review
Although clearly low-budget, Allied Artists lavished both Cinemascope and DeLuxe color on this somewhat verbose Western that borrowed plot number five from the catalogue of B-Western writing: the discovery by the villain of oil (gold, water, borax, et. al) on the property belonging to a lowly Indian (settler, nester, homesteader, etc.). Happily, this time the old wheeze is acted by a cast of competent veterans who had done this sort of thing many times before, but rarely better. As always, Joel McCrea makes a believable frontiersman, although he clearly isn't hailing from Oklahoma. Barbara Hale is her competent self as the inevitable heroine, and Brad Dexter makes a credible villain, whose motives are clearly drawn. But the real joy of the film remains its supporting cast: Verna Felton as Ms. Hale's feisty mother; Esther Dale as the no-nonsense boarding-house proprietress; and the townspeople, who, for once, are depicted as mostly caring individuals trying to make the best of a bad situation. Among them, surprisingly, is I. Stanford Jolley, usually the blackest of blackguards, but here portraying a sympathetic storekeeper. On the debit side, the Native Americans are white actors with much pancake makeup -- science fiction favorite Gloria Talbott is stunning nonetheless -- and the denouement seems strangely hurried. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Dave Milton - Art Director, Francis D. Lyon - Director, George White - Editor, Hans Salter - Composer (Music Score), Hans Salter - Musical Direction/Supervision, Carl Guthrie - Cinematographer, Walter Mirisch - Producer, Dan Ullman - Screenwriter
