Interesting to speculate what might have happened if the Jack Bruhn gang never showed up. Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) was creating a lot of resentment with his insistence on putting a stop to the fencing on open range land. Given his demeanor, the thought occurred to me that the town of Bitters might have been named after him. Had it gone that way, the story might have been just as grim as the one we got to see.I'm still not used to seeing Burl Ives in a Western setting, even though he's appeared in a number of them. Often as a villain too, as in 1958's "The Big Country". I guess I was too conditioned as a kid by his voicing Sam the Snowman in the TV movie "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"; that's where I think I first became aware of him. I think the story could have used a better explained rationale for the hold he had over his fellow band of thugs and cutthroats. They all stood down when he made it a point, but after a while I began to question why they were so afraid of him.The one casting surprise in the story for me was that of David Nelson as the young outlaw Gene who had an eye for town girl Ernine (Venetia Stevenson). Brother Rick appeared in a few but this is the first time I've seen David in any vehicle other than his parents' TV series.Where the film departs from a more conventional dynamic occurs in the latter part of the story when Ryan's character leads the outlaw bunch on a death march with the complicity of their leader Bruhn, who at that point pretty much knew that he was dying of a bullet wound. Starrett's only hope of making it out alive is borne out when the gang members start taking each other out in an expanded take on "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre".With as many Westerns as I've seen, this is the first one that graphically depicts what a difficult time a horse can have trying to walk through a couple feet of snow. It's obviously not that easy, and something Blaise Starrett might have considered when he stated to Bruhn at one point while on the trek - "None of us are gonna make it".

This movie has a common plot. Man goes away to take care of business and comes back home to find the townspeople he helped look at him as the enemy. Basically a bunch of turnips. But this movie was not anywhere common as most of these coming home movies are.Excellent movie. This is a great example on how a good movie can be made without being over exaggerated when violence is a crucial part of the story. The way Robert Ryan took care of the bandits means that some one actually took time to think out of the box and not have the usual solution for these types of movies. I won't say what happens but it was a genius plan. The whole cast was excellent include David Nelson. Frank DeKova was no Chief Iron Eagle on F Troop. IMO Robert Ryan can do no wrong. I want to add Burl Ives was in this movie as the head of the bandits. People think of him and they think he is some type of children movie actor. Not the case Burl Ives IMO was one of the greatest character actors around and he usually played a not too nice of a person.

There's a fine off-beat (b/w) western hiding behind that generic title. In a small snowed-in outpost town, a land dispute between self-appointed lawmaker Robert Ryan and other residents is interrupted by the arrival of runaway cavalry soldiers and gold thieves (led by Burt Ives, who's very good, as is the whole cast). It's more psychological than action-packed, and never quite plays out the way you'd expect. Based on a novel by Lee Wells. With Tina Louise, Venetia Stevenson, Nehemiah Persoff, Elisha Cook Jr. (barely in it as a barber), Jack Lambert, Lance Fuller, Frank De Kova, Dabbs Greer, William Schallert, Betsy Jones-Moreland (LAST WOMAN ON EARTH), Arthur Space and Robert Cornthwaite. It would make a good bleak winter western double-bill with THE GREAT SILENCE. Yordan wrote that other notably weird western JOHNNY GUITAR, among others.Movie reviews at: spinegrinderweb.com

Wow Wow Wow!!! OK here is another Western that has dropped off the radar screen that is not only a very good Western but it is the source of quotes that show up in Corbucci's "The Great Silence", in "Firecreek" and it in a way it also references "Shane".I'll give a quick synopsis: Directed by Andre' de Toth it stars Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, and Tina Louise (yes that Tina Louise "The Movie Star" from Gilligan's Island). Anyway it begins with rancher Starrett (Ryan) & his foreman Dan (Persoff) bucking their horses through heavy snow as the titles roll across the screen. They stop outside of a small town at a wagon filled with rolls of barbed wire. Ryan is going to have a confrontation with farmer Hal Crane who has fenced off some choice land for a farmstead. Ryan is also in love with Crane's wife (Louise). After a period of time where we learn of all these various triangles the confrontation comes at the only saloon in town. Starrett faces off against Crane and three other farmers. Dan the foreman is drunk but Starrett tells him to roll an empty booze bottle down the bar and to draw when it falls off.Up to this point this film seems like a typical Western and you think you know where its going.Before the bottle reaches the end of the bar in through the saloon door bursts a deranged Bruhn (Ives) dressed as a Union Officer with great coat, hat, and belts, along with his crazed gang of loonies with guns drawn who have just made it through a mountain pass after robbing 18,000 dollars. The gang gathers all the townsfolk together as hostages. The gang want whiskey and women but Bruhn has taken a bullet in the chest, and he tells them no whiskey or women, until he gets that bullet out. The only Doc in the town is a vet and he digs out the bullet and gives Bruhn a large shot of morphine, but it makes Bruhn feel better temporarily though the Doc believes the shot is fatal.Starrett tells Bruhn that he knows another pass over the mountain to Cheyenne and gets them to leave the town, the next sequences are reminiscent of both the desert in GBU and the horses struggling through the snows in TGS. I won't tell anymore.Ryan is great in this, Ives is great (better than his Western turn in "The Big Country"), and Louise is good.It also stars David Nelson (Ricky's brother) as the kid in the gang.All in all this is coming out on DVD and I'll be picking it up for my collection. So now we have an interesting progression from The Ox Bow Incident, Day Of The Outlaw, The Great Silence, McCabe & Mrs Miller, Joe Kidd, to Keoma.