Clean all white western--no blacks, no native Americans! Even the characters admit that one's actions are never black or white, meaning there are a lot of grey actions in our lives. Joel McCrea's character wants to go to the House (read, heaven). Very religious script for a western. Now, did Altman take a leaf from this film's gold diggers' community sequence to make "McCabe and Mrs Miller"?

Lots of favorable reviews for this one but I don't fully understand why. Scott and McCrea are their usual wooden selves, the music was low average at best, and the female lead was not exactly riveting. Hard to see why the youngster was along except to put the moves on the girl. The Hammond brothers were classic slimy low-lifes. The plot swerved from the beginning, when the banker was worried because six men had been killed trying to bring gold out, to the end, when the Hammonds provided the only opposition, and they weren't after the gold, but the girl. The movie was supposedly set around 1890-1900, but the only coin shown was a dime first minted in 1916. Nice scenery, though.

We have a group of 3, later 4, traveling together along a primitive mountain horse trail from the valley town of Hornitos, CA to a primitive mining camp(Coarse Gold). Although not always obvious at first, the 4 have 4 goals between them for so traveling together. Young Elsa Knudsen is running away from her overbearing father to marry a man in the mining camp she barely knows. Old-timer, sometimes former lawman, Steve Judd(Joel McCrea) is going to pick up a shipment of gold nuggets for the bank, after various miners have been robbed and killed recently making this journey. He enlists an old sometimes lawman buddy, Gil(Randy Scott), currently reduced to being a Buffalo Bill-imitating side showman in a carnival, and Gil's young partner, Heck, to back up in case of trouble. The problem is that Gil actually plans to steal the gold, with Heck's reluctant complicity. Gil hopes to later convince Steve to join them. Meanwhile, Heck hopes to seduce the flirtatious Elsa along the way, and perhaps convince her to abandon her fiancé for him. This yarn is full of rather familiar characters and situations for westerns. There is the attempted gold shipment heist. The seedy mining camp, populated by an assortment of criminals, opportunists, drunks, gamblers and bawdy gaudy prostitutes. There is Edgar Buchanan, in a familiar role as the always drunk corrupt judge in this camp. We have a naïve young woman being fought over by unsavory men, as she is attempting to escape her possessive father's grasp. We have an old gunslinger in Steve, who is trying to justify his life by doing good deeds to hopefully cancel out some past bad deeds. We also have an old gunslinger in Gil, who feels no need to justify his existence by always doing the useful and honorable thing. He may help Steve achieve his goals, or he may do what he thinks is best for him. Finally, we have a band of 5 brutish brothers in the mining camp, who leave Gil unscathed in their several gun battles, but eventually mortally wound Steve, leaving Gil and Heck to decide what to do with the gold. Steve's death eliminates the threat of their being jailed for their past attempted robbery.The screenplay has elements roughly similar to those in several westerns I am familiar with. In some respects, it rather resembles "Vera Cruz", with Steve taking on Cooper's role as the more honorable of the pair, while Gil is the counterpart of Lancaster's greedy character. However, the ending is quite different. Instead of a shootout between the two men, Steve and Gil partner in a mimicry of the legendary OK coral gunfight between the Earps vs. a gang of rowdy cowboys. It also differs in that the more honorable one of the pair, rather than the greedy one, dies. Thus, we have to hope, with no assurance, that Gil will live up to his promise to the dying Steve that he will complete Steve's mission of delivering the gold, and will live an honorable life thereafter. It also somewhat resembles "Along the Great Divide", in which Kirk Douglass is transporting a suspected cattle thief and murder plus his daughter to a distant town for trial, while the trio are being harassed periodically by the victim family, intent on killing the suspect without a trial.We don't find out why old Gil and young Heck are friends. Heck is simply required by the plot. Although later in film, Heck is portrayed as being perhaps worthy of Elsa's trust and love, we aren't very comfortable with his character, because he was talked into stealing the gold, and because he tries to rape Elsa at one point, after he got the understandable impression that she was encouraging him, while supposedly on the trail to marry another man. Thus, we also wonder about Elsa's character: whether she is any more loyal wife material, at present, than the bawdy Kate and her prostitutes. Hence, the only character we are really comfortable with is Steve, because he consistently does the honorable thing, in breaking up Heck's rape attempt, initiating and carrying out the contentious rescue of Elsa from the clutches of the evil Hammonds, and in attempting to deliver the gold to the bank in the face of treason by his companions.On the surface, the Hammonds are prospectors. We may suspect, but are provided no evidence, that they carried out the recent thefts and murders on this trail. What is so special about Elsa to them, with plenty of willing prostitutes available, to make them risk their lives to recapture this now fearful bride? Do they know that the party of 4 is carrying much gold, thus providing an additional reason for attacking them? Steve's strategy of shaming the remaining brothers into exiting the house to fight a gun battle in the open comes across as very contrived. I can't believe they were that compliant or cared one iota about their sense of honor!This is an unusual story in that Randy's character is first billed and the ultimate survivor, whereas McCrea's character clearly is the more heroic, encouraging Randy's character to live up to his standards, and eventually to replace him when he dies. Thus, Steve serves as the better father model for young Heck, as Heck eventually recognizes.I have noted the many similarities with the plot of the previous "Ride Lonesome", in another review.

The beginning is a bit odd; how did the camel get where it did? But no matter; an elderly former lawman is hired by a bank to retrieve some gold from a nearby mine through a dangerous mountain area. The lawman finds an old friend and Heck, his young protégé, to help him with his task. Trouble is, the friend and the protégé both plan to steal the gold for themselves.On the trip, they visit the home of a Bible-quoting man and his daughter and stay overnight, and Heck develops an interest in her. But the daughter is unhappy living with her overprotective and tyrannical father, and goes with the others to the mining town where a boy lives that she had previously met and liked. The men get the gold as planned, and the daughter marries the boy...only to discover that the boy, his family, and the mining town they live in are much less wonderful than she had anticipated, and she wants to leave. The ex-lawman and company take her back with them...and the trouble really begins.The movie succeeds because the characters are all credible; none are entirely heroes or villains. Even the psychotic Hammond family proves willing to fight with honor. Also the movie isn't overlong or rushed. and there's some humor without the movie becoming a comedy. Recommended.