A cattle drive from Texas arrives at its destination in a town in Kansas. This sets off a wave of price gouging to take as much advantage as possible of the new business. Virginia Mayo runs a restaurant and Robert Middleton is set to open a new saloon. Marshall Robert Ryan comes face to face with the past in both Middleton and the cowboy son of a gunslinger (Jeffrey Hunter) who believes that Ryan gunned down his father in cold blood in the previous town he was a marshal in. The film is pretty good at showing the avariciousness of the merchants, who are willing to let law and order slide in order to profit from the business. Do they want law and order or wild and uncivilized profiteering led by the crooked Middleton and his gunslingers? It's a good question and the film could have been a whole lot better with a script that made more sense, especially for the beautiful Mayo, who's character is trapped in a stereotype.
Review of The Proud Ones
