I've noticed that in many a B western the cowboy hero will 95% of the time see someone in trouble and instinctively help the underdog. You see that God knows how many times with Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and the rest. Sierra Stranger is a B western with a different proposition. Help goes to the wrong party.
Howard Duff is in the title role, he's the stranger and he helps Ed Kemmer when he sees Barton MacLane and Robert Foulk roughing him up and about to tie him to a horse to be dragged. Kemmer is of course grateful and tells him to look up Dick Foran when he gets to town for a grubstake.
But when Duff gets to town he has quite a reception awaiting him. Other than Dick Foran who turns out to be Kemmer's half brother and who owns the saloon public opinion is that Kemmer's a no good rat and probably guilty of the claim jumping that MacLane and Foulk claim he is. Even Eve McVeigh who is Foran's wife and Gloria McGhee who is Kemmer's girl friend don't have much good to say about Kemmer.
It all does end quite tragically.
Sierra Stranger is a no frills B western that Columbia Pictures released to fill some bottom bills in the Fifties. This was the kind of story that you could find in a Gunsmoke or a Have Gun Will Travel episode on television which was why the B western was rapidly going into extinction. The next decade would see the last of them.
Howard Duff, Dick Foran and the rest of the cast fit nicely into their parts. But it's Ed Kemmer who has the best role in the film as the unregenerate no good who everyone, but Dick Foran sees for what he is.
Howard Duff is in the title role, he's the stranger and he helps Ed Kemmer when he sees Barton MacLane and Robert Foulk roughing him up and about to tie him to a horse to be dragged. Kemmer is of course grateful and tells him to look up Dick Foran when he gets to town for a grubstake.
But when Duff gets to town he has quite a reception awaiting him. Other than Dick Foran who turns out to be Kemmer's half brother and who owns the saloon public opinion is that Kemmer's a no good rat and probably guilty of the claim jumping that MacLane and Foulk claim he is. Even Eve McVeigh who is Foran's wife and Gloria McGhee who is Kemmer's girl friend don't have much good to say about Kemmer.
It all does end quite tragically.
Sierra Stranger is a no frills B western that Columbia Pictures released to fill some bottom bills in the Fifties. This was the kind of story that you could find in a Gunsmoke or a Have Gun Will Travel episode on television which was why the B western was rapidly going into extinction. The next decade would see the last of them.
Howard Duff, Dick Foran and the rest of the cast fit nicely into their parts. But it's Ed Kemmer who has the best role in the film as the unregenerate no good who everyone, but Dick Foran sees for what he is.