"Sands of Iwo Jima" director Allan Dwan doesn't squander a single second in his suspenseful RKO western saga "Silver Lode" about an innocent man driven to prove that he has been framed for both murder and robbery. "Saga of Death Valley" scenarist Karen DeWolf thrusts the protagonist into an obstacle course of predicaments as he struggles to convince the town citizens about his inherent virtuosity. Dwan and DeWolf keep our hero jumping through hoops. About midway through the narrative, things begin to unravel for the villains. One of them is willing to tell our hero the truth about the frame-up. The filmmakers confine the same day action to the frontier town limits of Silver Lode. The citizens are celebrating the Fourth of July. The performances are all strong and the casting credible. You'll recognize several familiar faces, among them Harry Carey, Jr., Stuart Whitman, Emile Meyer, and Morris Ankrum. John Payne looks appropriately anxious as the incriminated hero, while Dan Duryea is a sinister lawman Fred McCarty who claims that our hero not only stole twentieth thousand dollars but also shot his brother in the back. As his future wife, Lizabeth Scott refuses to believe that he could be guilty of those crimes. Town sentiment starts out strongly in the hero's favor. Gradually it swings in the opposite direction. Initially, Duryea and his deputies interrupt Dan Ballard's wedding, but he has trouble getting his credentials approved. Dwan and his scenarists make "Silver Lode" into a gripping cat & mouse showdown between the hero and the villain.

THE SILVER LODE is a pretty good Technicolor western from RKO. The story is good, the cast is top notch, and the photography is particularly fine. This movie is supposedly an anti-Senator McCarthy parable, and if so I'll rate it an "F" and No Stars, but the idea this is about McCarthy is nonsense.John Payne and Lizabeth Scott have their wedding interrupted by a US Marshal (named McCarty, not McCarthy) and played by dependable bad guy Dan Duryea on a charge of murder. Duryea is a fake, and it seems he's more interested in a certain $20,000 than the untimely shooting of his brother. This "parable" obviously has exactly zero to do with investigating Communist infiltration of the film industry during the Cold War Era.One of the most cowardly things a filmmaker, author or journalist can do is to attack Senator McCarthy. McCarthy was a war hero who offended Hollywood's lefties by daring to expose the many Communists in their industry --- as verified by testimony from the much-honored director Elia Kazan. They took their revenge out by attacking the man with mountain-upon-mountain of cheap shots and lies for the past 50 years; and the lies continue today.Almost any American, not just the left, many otherwise well informed people, believe the lies, if only through sheer abundance. To pile more lies on top of this is sheer cowardice -- as is the idea of re-defining this 1953 western in terms of their evil and vindictive spin.Rent this one and enjoy it for the good western that it is.

As something original and different this is a pretty interesting movie to watch. It's a western but not one with a story that involves a typical gunslinger story or revenge plot.It's a movie in which a man who is about to get married has to defend himself in front of its town and town-folks, when he man, who claims to be an U.S. Marshall, rides into town with a warrant for his arrest and accuses him of having committed a murder. This whole story provides the movie with a different approach like you would normally expect from a western. If I have to compare it to anything else, the movie "The Ox-Bow Incident" is the one that comes the most close to it.Even though its an interesting and original approach it doesn't also mean that the movie is great throughout to watch. The movie does certainly feel a bit dated and its being a bit awkward to watch at times because its action and just the movie overall feels a bit clumsy and is cheap looking at times.The story itself also of course doesn't provide the movie with much spectacular fireworks. Not that the movie is dull or anything but at times I wished there would be some less talking and also less characters involved with the story.This movie would had most likely not cost a lot of money to make. It has an unknown director at the helm and also an unknown cast in it. Directing and acting-wise this is also not really a movie that impresses much but due to the fact that its original and different this movie still remains a perfectly good one and also interesting one to watch.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I must admit here and now that I have not seen this film. However, in my research of such B-Westerns, I found that this film was originally shot in 3-D. That has not been mentioned anywhere.Perhaps the IMDb crew can investigate and make the appropriate notation wherever it is that such notations are made.I certainly would like to see this film, as it appears to have an interesting cast... John Payne, Dan Duryea, and Lizabeth Scott usually do good work, and the other reviews have generally been positive.From the reviews, this could perhaps be one of the best 3-D movies made during the 3-D movie craze in the early 1950's... Hondo being another one that could be better.