"Showdown Trail" is one of those "Wells Fargo" episodes that takes its characters out on location and delivers on its promise of plenty of action. Here, Wells Fargo agent Jim Hardie is taking a prisoner, Ed Dooley, who is cuffed to his wrist, to San Francisco for trial. When the Dooley outlaw clan stops the train, they abduct Hardie, still chained to Ed because he'd sent the handcuff key on to San Francisco, and kill Hardie's partner. Eventually, Hardie gets free and goes on the run from the Dooleys, trying to find a way to get a horse and gun and go back and confront them. The Dooleys, led by ruthless Joe Dooley and including Ed's brother Pat and sister Fay, present a formidable enemy to Hardie. Fay, realizing Hardie doesn't know her, sets out to lure him into a trap, which she manages to do rather effortlessly. As always in this series, Hardie eventually prevails, but it's a very suspenseful ride along the way.
The cast is a colorful one and includes short-lived Bowery Boy Stanley Clements as Ed and the striking brunette Gloria Talbott (a mainstay of westerns and sci-fi films in the 1950s) as the cunning Fay. Reliable heavy Myron Healey plays Pat, while tough old Joe is played by Will Wright, a dependable character actor who usually played smaller parts and rarely one that required as much action as this role. Another standout heavy in the cast is Emile Meyer, who plays an ill-fated neighbor of the Dooleys who refuses to help Hardie when he's in need. The location photography is quite spectacular.