I have seen this film so many times, which is a testimony to its brilliance. From the beginning, when the slippery Dan Duryea and his cohorts ride in to town, you know you're in for tensely packed film, and what's so amazing is that the excitement is packed into 77 mins. An unapologetic mirroring of the McCartyism witch-hunt, this film pulls no punches in portraying a well-respected man turned into a criminal when a man professes to be a marshal arrests him and plans to extract him from town. But the town citizens want none of this, and rally against the marshal, siding with the protagonist, but that support slow slips away, and protagonist is now the enemy. John Payne plays the protagonist really well, and this is probably is his best western.
Review of Silver Lode
