This Western was directed by Robert Wise and has a fine, experienced cast. The story is a familiar one. One old chum (Preston) sends for another old chum (Mitchum) to offer him a job. The problem is that, though a juxtaposition of circumstance, it's a lousy job, even though it would pay well. Mitchum is supposed to help Preston and his gang of low lifes scam the local farmers, like Walter Brennan, and an honest rancher, Tom Tully, out of his cattle. The means are too complicated to bother explaining.
It must be one of the least glamorous Westerns ever filmed. The opening shots are of Mitchum alone on horseback, riding over some dark hills in the middle of a torrent. He's drenched and uncomfortable. Few people in the story look comfortable. It's cold and turns snowy. The men are bundled up in winter clothing and wear tall ugly cowboy hats. They tend to wear chaps, which are really fit only for stylization, like Robert Duval's woolly chaps in the original "True Grit." In a minor role, Charles McGraw lumbers around in what looks like a bear costume, growling his observations.
The women look delicate though. Barbara Bel Geddes is attractive and ends her lines with the terminal contours of an upper-class school girl from Rosemary Hall. Phyllis Thaxter, I think, is miscast as Preston's naive girl friend. She's purity personified and it's hard to swallow her attraction to a lying, mustachioed villain like Preston. Lust is not exactly her forte.
Many of the scenes take place at night and everything looks depressing. It captures the atmosphere all right but the atmosphere is something from Dante's Purgatorio.
In the course of the tale, Mitchum changes his mind, sides with the good guys, has a brutal fist fight with Preston, finally has a shoot out with the villains, and ascends Mount Purgatory to the peaceful summit, hand in hand with Bel Geddes.
There's a lot of energy on screen but little of it looks original. Mitchum is a bit plump and sleepier than in some of his other work. But it must be said that after that unsparing, barbaric fight in the bar room, Mitchum and the make up department, allowed him to look like hell, his long hair hanging in strands over his ears, sweating and panting as the usual heroes never do. There are also some impressive shots of a pursuit through the snow. All of it might have been better done in color.
It must be one of the least glamorous Westerns ever filmed. The opening shots are of Mitchum alone on horseback, riding over some dark hills in the middle of a torrent. He's drenched and uncomfortable. Few people in the story look comfortable. It's cold and turns snowy. The men are bundled up in winter clothing and wear tall ugly cowboy hats. They tend to wear chaps, which are really fit only for stylization, like Robert Duval's woolly chaps in the original "True Grit." In a minor role, Charles McGraw lumbers around in what looks like a bear costume, growling his observations.
The women look delicate though. Barbara Bel Geddes is attractive and ends her lines with the terminal contours of an upper-class school girl from Rosemary Hall. Phyllis Thaxter, I think, is miscast as Preston's naive girl friend. She's purity personified and it's hard to swallow her attraction to a lying, mustachioed villain like Preston. Lust is not exactly her forte.
Many of the scenes take place at night and everything looks depressing. It captures the atmosphere all right but the atmosphere is something from Dante's Purgatorio.
In the course of the tale, Mitchum changes his mind, sides with the good guys, has a brutal fist fight with Preston, finally has a shoot out with the villains, and ascends Mount Purgatory to the peaceful summit, hand in hand with Bel Geddes.
There's a lot of energy on screen but little of it looks original. Mitchum is a bit plump and sleepier than in some of his other work. But it must be said that after that unsparing, barbaric fight in the bar room, Mitchum and the make up department, allowed him to look like hell, his long hair hanging in strands over his ears, sweating and panting as the usual heroes never do. There are also some impressive shots of a pursuit through the snow. All of it might have been better done in color.