Following a murderous attack on a stagecoach and an isolated relay station, three outlaws take hostages, hoping for a ransom to be paid for the daughter of a wealthy landowner. They reckon without the ingenuity of a struggling ranch owner who is one of the captives.
Randolph Scott is his usual tactiturn self with expressions as robust as the granite rock amidst the rugged scenery of Alabama Hills, and his visage stays solid as a group of unsavoury characters take hostage of Scott, Maureen O' Sullivan and her cowardly husband (John Hubbard) who sells his wife down the river by telling them that her father is rich and could give a hefty ransom for his daughter . This tautly-plotted and tense western starts off leisurely, Scott arriving at a relay station, having small talk with the station master, promising his son he will get him striped candy when he heads to town and then has a chatter with Stagecoach driver( Arthur Hunnicutt), then riding a bull over a bet and ends up horseless. From here the stagecoach picks him up and soon as they get to the relay station the light atmosphere disappears. The villains -Richard Boone, Skip Homeier and Henry Silva - aren't the pencil twirling variety or sentimental ( they killed the station master and his boy) and are quite dangerous. Which helps to elevate the already tense atmosphere. The pace and tension never lets up - it's quite gripping, has grand performances all around, though Henry Silva sort of steals the scene as the kill-happy gun thug whose expression is perpetually fixed with a leer. The villains have Scott and co. Under a barrel, quite literally- how Scott is going to overcome these obstacles? You have to watch this Randolph Scott western with a theme of greed and human frailty to find out.
Randolph Scott is his usual tactiturn self with expressions as robust as the granite rock amidst the rugged scenery of Alabama Hills, and his visage stays solid as a group of unsavoury characters take hostage of Scott, Maureen O' Sullivan and her cowardly husband (John Hubbard) who sells his wife down the river by telling them that her father is rich and could give a hefty ransom for his daughter . This tautly-plotted and tense western starts off leisurely, Scott arriving at a relay station, having small talk with the station master, promising his son he will get him striped candy when he heads to town and then has a chatter with Stagecoach driver( Arthur Hunnicutt), then riding a bull over a bet and ends up horseless. From here the stagecoach picks him up and soon as they get to the relay station the light atmosphere disappears. The villains -Richard Boone, Skip Homeier and Henry Silva - aren't the pencil twirling variety or sentimental ( they killed the station master and his boy) and are quite dangerous. Which helps to elevate the already tense atmosphere. The pace and tension never lets up - it's quite gripping, has grand performances all around, though Henry Silva sort of steals the scene as the kill-happy gun thug whose expression is perpetually fixed with a leer. The villains have Scott and co. Under a barrel, quite literally- how Scott is going to overcome these obstacles? You have to watch this Randolph Scott western with a theme of greed and human frailty to find out.