I'm always amused when the theme of a movie has to do with an accused man returning to the scene of a crime with the intent of finding the real killer. It always makes me think of O.J. Simpson and how, if he had been as persistent as Dana Andrews, might have been totally in the clear by now. Maybe he's still trying, I kind of lost track.
Say, that was a pretty realistic looking fight between Jim Guthrie (Andrews) and Niles Hendricks (Richard Coogan) in the first half of the picture. I don't think I've ever seen two guys get so banged up rolling down hill into bushes and trees the way they did. That lent an authenticity to their quarrel that you usually don't see in most pictures.
This is the second Western in a row I've seen in which the main character, in this case Guthrie, discovers that his former flame married in his absence but had a son from their earlier relationship. Rory Calhoun faced the same situation in 1965's "Black Spurs" and wound up not upsetting the new status quo as it were once the story came to an end. I thought Donna Reed's character Laurie Mastin would have been more conflicted by the outcome, but at least Guthrie achieved his original goal.
No one else mentioned it in their reviews, but there was a real puzzler during the final confrontation between Guthrie and Sheriff Ben (Stephen Elliot). During their exchange of gunfire, Guthrie reacted at one point as if he was hit by his opponent's bullet, grabbing his right shoulder in pain and falling to the ground. But as their encounter continued, Guthrie fought Ben one on one and wound up shooting Ben while showing no ill effects of a wound, and no bullet hole or blood to show for it. If the feigned reaction was a ruse it would have made sense to acknowledge it later but that never happened. So that gunfight remains a mystery to me.
Say, that was a pretty realistic looking fight between Jim Guthrie (Andrews) and Niles Hendricks (Richard Coogan) in the first half of the picture. I don't think I've ever seen two guys get so banged up rolling down hill into bushes and trees the way they did. That lent an authenticity to their quarrel that you usually don't see in most pictures.
This is the second Western in a row I've seen in which the main character, in this case Guthrie, discovers that his former flame married in his absence but had a son from their earlier relationship. Rory Calhoun faced the same situation in 1965's "Black Spurs" and wound up not upsetting the new status quo as it were once the story came to an end. I thought Donna Reed's character Laurie Mastin would have been more conflicted by the outcome, but at least Guthrie achieved his original goal.
No one else mentioned it in their reviews, but there was a real puzzler during the final confrontation between Guthrie and Sheriff Ben (Stephen Elliot). During their exchange of gunfire, Guthrie reacted at one point as if he was hit by his opponent's bullet, grabbing his right shoulder in pain and falling to the ground. But as their encounter continued, Guthrie fought Ben one on one and wound up shooting Ben while showing no ill effects of a wound, and no bullet hole or blood to show for it. If the feigned reaction was a ruse it would have made sense to acknowledge it later but that never happened. So that gunfight remains a mystery to me.