The only feature filmmaking effort for writer / director Roy Huggins (who went on to create the TV series 'The Fugitive' and 'The Rockford Files') stars Western icon Randolph Scott. Scott plays Confederate major Matt Stewart, who carries out a mission to rob a gold shipment. After all is said and done and a number of men have died, Stewart and the survivors learn that the Civil War is actually over. Content to hold on to the gold for now, they are pursued by a single- minded "posse" and are forced to hole up in a stagecoach way station. Conflicts run high inside the station in addition to the threat waiting outside.Huggins's film is a beautifully shot Technicolor Western that serves as a solid example of the genre. It clocks in at a reasonable 82 minutes, and the story by Huggins is absorbing every step of the way. Scott excels at playing a level headed protagonist, and he leads a strong cast. Donna Reed is lovely and appealing in the role of a Union Army nurse whose skills will come in handy. Claude Jarman Jr. is likewise endearing as Jamie, a junior member of Stewarts' gang. Lee Marvin is lots of fun as Rolf, a volatile type. Richard Denning is perfect in the role of Lee Kemper, who turns out to be a real weasel. Likewise impressive are Frank Faylen, Glenn Langan, Jeanette Nolan, Clem Bevans, and Ray Teal. Scotts' efficient, authoritative performance is the glue that holds everything together.Yakima Canutt stages all of the excellent action. Of particular interest is the final showdown between our "heroes" and their antagonists, which takes place during a thunderstorm. The sequence leading up to that, of the way station being set ablaze, is similarly intense and exciting.A commercial and critical favourite on Scotts' resume, "Hangman's Knot" is good, straightforward fun.Eight out of 10.

Major Matt Stewart, CSA, (Randolph Scott) and his men have a problem. It's Nevada, 1865, and they've just shot down a group of Union soldiers and taken $50,000 worth of gold. Their orders were do to just this, and to get the gold back to the Confederacy. The problem is that the war ended a few weeks ago and they didn't know it. No one will believe their story if they turn themselves in, not with ten or so Union corpses on the ground. They decide to keep the gold and attempt to make their way back home. This isn't going to be easy. Stewart and his men wind up in an isolated stage relay station, pinned down by a gang of murderous drifters. With Stewart and his men are Molly Hull (Donna Reed) and Lee Kemper (Richard Denning), who'd been passengers on a stage. Molly had been a Union nurse and is a fine looking woman. Kemper says he's her fiancée, but we suspect that he's just a smooth operator, probably with cowardly tendencies. And there's the couple who run the station, an old man and his daughter-in-law, a woman whose husband and son were killed fighting for the Union. Then there's the matter of Stewart's men. Most are reasonably good guys, including Cass Browne (Frank Faylen), a matter-of-fact realist with a sense of irony, and Jamie Groves (Claude Jarman, Jr.), the obligatory young kid who has to learn to become a man. There's also Rolph Bainter (Lee Marvin) as, what else if Marvin plays him, a mouth-breathing bully with a fondness for killing. "What's happened to you? Is it that easy to kill a man?" Major Stewart asks Bainter just after Bainter guns down a minor player. "Well, isn't it?" says Bainter with a shrug. Hangman's Knot starts with a rousing action sequence that includes the attack on the gold escort, the tense appearance of the drifters' gang, the stagecoach chase and the first attack on the stage station. It concludes with a violent resolution that involves fire and rain, with lighting and betrayal all mixing it up with a lot of death. Some critics have said that the middle of Hangman's Knot, when everyone except the drifters is holed up in the small, two- room station, is slow going. I don't think so. It's just that the middle doesn't have any galloping. What the middle section has is tense character development. We get to know who the people are and see the dynamics of their relationships change, thanks to a shrewd screenplay. I don't want to make too much of this but in the hands of actors like Jeanette Nolan, Frank Faylen, Glenn Langan and Richard Denning Hangman's Knott turns into a pleasant way to spend 81 minutes. While it may not be an A movie, it certainly isn't a B movie, perhaps a strong B-plus. And it's Randolph Scott who makes the difference. He had long ago established himself as a major star. Like Joel McCrea, he liked the outdoors and had enough money and smarts to make the movies he wanted to make, namely Westerns. Most of the movies he made in the Fifties he also produced. Scott was a big guy who aged well and stayed lean. There never was any doubt which side of honor Scott's characters came down on. Watching Randolph Scott handle Lee Marvin is an interesting lesson in star charisma. In this movie, Marvin is modestly billed but has an important role. Five years later in Seven Men From Now, Marvin is billed third and the movie essentially is about the two of them. Marvin is still the sneering bully who likes to prod the weak. In both movies, Marvin is such a strong presence with his own brand of charisma and vivid unlikablity that not too many star actors could have stood up to him. Scott was 26 years older than Marvin and looks it. Yet it is Scott, in my opinion, who dominates. Marvin steals no scenes he shares with Scott. That, in my view, speaks to Scott's genuine star power. In the movies, assuming the actors are both capable, lip-smacking evil will almost always dominate earnest good. Just look at how Walter Huston stole the show from Edward Arnold in The Devil & Daniel Webster. It takes a rare actor who plays good to dominate another capable actor playing bad. Not many actors had Lee Marvin playing second fiddle. Scott did it twice.

Here's a solid little Randolph Scott number with a fine supporting cast taking place only a few weeks after the Civil War has ended. That's unknown to Major Matt Stewart (Scott), and his band of Rebels at the time they hijack a quarter million dollar gold shipment from a band of Union soldiers. Attempting to outrun the authorities that are soon to follow, they find themselves holed up at a way station with two stagecoach travelers who were on board when the Rebs sought cover for their getaway.Lee Marvin gets a fair amount of screen time as the Major's trigger happy, hot headed second, and the story offers a number of scenes where the two collide verbally and physically. It was somewhat of a breakout role for Marvin, who prior had mainly uncredited film parts and a few TV series appearances. The expected final confrontation between the pair however is interrupted by the young soldier Jamie (Claude Jarman Jr.) watching his commanding officer's back. It was somewhat of a twist to the story for this viewer, as all the while, the film kept making it a point that the young man had never killed anyone before, not even during the war. It brought full circle to a remark the Major made to him early in their story that before they got back home, Jamie would have to find a way to become a man.I guess I'm not used to seeing someone like Donna Reed in a Western, so her appearance took some getting used to. I can't say I was fully convinced with her character falling in love with the Major, considering the circumstances of their involvement with the Rebels, and even more so, the palpable difference in their ages. It didn't hurt that her traveling companion and self professed fiancée (Richard Denning) was such a lout, thereby setting up the comparison between himself and Scott's character.The near finale with the Major against the leader of the outlaw posse (Ray Teal) was somewhat original in it's execution and outcome. Oddly staged, it was surprisingly believable that the villain could be hauled away, stuck in his horse's stirrup. Thinking about it, I wondered how far the horse might have run and what the fate of Teal's character Quincey might have been. Would he have been dragged to death, fallen loose, or left to some other fate? Curious to ponder if nothing else.Ultimately, the Major vindicates himself in his sweetheart's eyes when he and his partner Jamie drop their saddlebags of gold bars. You kind of wondered what would happen with all that gold, and in some measure, I still do. Left with the station agent and his daughter in law, there wasn't much in the neighborhood they could do with it all.

Randolph Scott leads a group of Confederate raiders who rob a gold shipment and kill the Union Cavalry escort. Before one of them dies though, he informs the group that the Civil War's been over for a few weeks. They're outlaws now.That fact is brought home when a group of "deputies" lead by Ray Teal and Guinn Williams go out hunting the Confederates. They're not law officers in fact, but raiders looking to steal the gold and kill Scott and his crew. Scott and his crew take shelter in a stagecoach station and the fun begins.Everybody's in conflict here. Randolph Scott has eyes for stage passenger Donna Reed and her fiancée Richard Denning doesn't like it. Lee Marvin, who's one of Scott's men, also has eyes for Reed and willing to take a direct approach. The folks who run the station, Clem Bevans and Jeanette Nolan, don't like being caught up in the shooting at their station, but don't like the Confederates in particular as their Union sympathizers and Nolan's husband and son have both been killed in the war. Even the bad guys are arguing over just what approach to take in dealing with the Confederates and none of them trust the others. All this with the two groups shooting at each other.For 81 minutes a lot of plot is packed in and it's nicely done. Very tight editing, not a word or action wasted. Randolph Scott stands rigidly as the moral centerpiece of the film. Donna Reed, a year away from her Academy Award in From Here To Eternity, does well as a former Union Army nurse going west with her fiancée Richard Denning whom she learns is not all he seems. Lee Marvin gives a harbinger of things to come with his portrayal of a man quite ready and eager to become an outlaw.One of Randolph Scott's best westerns.