Review of The Ox-Bow Incident

If you are going to make a movie that it intended to be taken SERIOUSLY,then you can't afford to have plot holes big enough to sail the "Titanic"through.The idea is that the mob goes off half cocked and strings up three people on no evidence.But what did they find?A stranger has a herd of cattle belonging to a local rancher who has been reported murdered.He says that he paid the rancher several thousand dollars,a sizable fortune in those days,and got no receipt, no bill of sale,because nobody happened to have any paper on them!Anthony Quinn,recognized as an outlaw by one of the posse(and he never denied it),is carrying a pistol belonging to the rancher,claiming that he "found it".THAT peculiar bit of evidence was never explained away in the movie! We are supposed to believe that the rancher,living in a valley infested with rustlers,where the inhabitants are seething with rage, ready to lynch the next rustler they caught,is going to sell a herd of cattle to a stranger so casually,like buying a shirt at a garage sale,taking several thousands in cash and sending him on his merry way without any proof whatsoever of the sale.And the buyer would have to be pretty stupid to buy anything so expensive,without a bill of sale.The consequences of being caught rustling,or being mistaken for a rustler became well known very quickly to even newcomers out west.This plot is far too contrived, too ridiculous to be taken seriously.First the lynch mob is "set up" with evidence that seems conclusive,then, very implausibly, explained away.If you are going to preach a sermon about lynching,you need to make the mob talk itself into doing the deed,with little or no conclusive evidence.There was an old radio play called"Judgement Day At Deer Creek",set in the Yukon during the Gold Rush of '98,which was a million times better than THIS.