At times thoughtful and humorous, this western from the folks at Universal deserves to have more of a following. It's always a good thing when stuntman-turned-actor Jock Mahoney is cast in a lead role. He has just the right amount of ruggedness and charm about him.
And when he delivers a threat directly at an enemy, you can believe he means business and will resort whatever means necessary to back it up. He does not intimate easily, which is what is required for an anti-hero in this particular genre.
Cast as the leading lady is former Disney child star Luanna Patten. She's certainly younger than Mr. Mahoney, which helps the story since she needs an older brother-type figure to protect her from the corruption of her town. He can help her make sense of what happened to her one fateful night.
We learn she was attacked in the dark a few weeks earlier. This occurred while she was visiting the shack of an old native man. The man was accused of sexually assaulting her and hanged the following day. But she had blacked out during the attack, and because her memory of events was sketchy, she misidentified him as her assailant. Instead, it was another man (Charles McGraw) who was on the property at the same time and tried to rape her.
Mahoney is able to get her to realize her mistake- not all claims of rape are accurately reported- and McGraw is revealed as having a motive to set the native up for the crime. Since the native man's land had oil on it, McGraw can now swoop in and take it, with the native dead and out of the way.
Meanwhile, Mahoney has arrived in the community to find out about the native man, because they were friends. There's a good backstory- Mahoney was an army captain in the war, and the native was his trusted scout. He knows his friend was falsely accused of rape and unjustly hanged.
Part of the film has Mahoney acting as the town's conscience to get them to own their miscarriage of justice. This includes two brothers played by Lee Van Cleef and Claude Akins in early roles.
Mahoney wants the people to stand up to McGraw, so they'll stop being manipulated. There are several conflicts among the locals, which means Mahoney's work is cut out for him.
And when he delivers a threat directly at an enemy, you can believe he means business and will resort whatever means necessary to back it up. He does not intimate easily, which is what is required for an anti-hero in this particular genre.
Cast as the leading lady is former Disney child star Luanna Patten. She's certainly younger than Mr. Mahoney, which helps the story since she needs an older brother-type figure to protect her from the corruption of her town. He can help her make sense of what happened to her one fateful night.
We learn she was attacked in the dark a few weeks earlier. This occurred while she was visiting the shack of an old native man. The man was accused of sexually assaulting her and hanged the following day. But she had blacked out during the attack, and because her memory of events was sketchy, she misidentified him as her assailant. Instead, it was another man (Charles McGraw) who was on the property at the same time and tried to rape her.
Mahoney is able to get her to realize her mistake- not all claims of rape are accurately reported- and McGraw is revealed as having a motive to set the native up for the crime. Since the native man's land had oil on it, McGraw can now swoop in and take it, with the native dead and out of the way.
Meanwhile, Mahoney has arrived in the community to find out about the native man, because they were friends. There's a good backstory- Mahoney was an army captain in the war, and the native was his trusted scout. He knows his friend was falsely accused of rape and unjustly hanged.
Part of the film has Mahoney acting as the town's conscience to get them to own their miscarriage of justice. This includes two brothers played by Lee Van Cleef and Claude Akins in early roles.
Mahoney wants the people to stand up to McGraw, so they'll stop being manipulated. There are several conflicts among the locals, which means Mahoney's work is cut out for him.