Despite having Joel McCrea in the lead, this is a rather dull western...dull and pretty predictable. About the only part that was unexpected was how less than honorable McCrea's character was through much of the movie.The story is set during the Civil War. Three buddies all arrive in Yankee occupied Texas on the lookout for Cottrell (Victor Jory). Cottrell is fashioned after the real life Civil War raider, Quantrill...though oddly he's fighting for the Union in this one. Despite Kip Davis (Joel McCrea) and his friends wanting to kill Cottrell, soon Lee (Douglas Kennedy) joins the Confederate army and Kip and Charlie (Zachary Scott) help the South by running the blockades. Eventually, however, Charlie comes to enjoy getting rich much more than helping the Confederacy and this brings a very predictable showdown at the end.Everything about this film is mediocre at best and the story only occasionally interesting. I had a hard time caring about the characters and the story.

Joel McCrea, Douglas Kennedy, and Zachary Scott are partners in the Three Bell Ranch in Texas as the Civil War starts. When war does come it splits the partners up. The ranch is raided by Victor Jory and his cutthroats and the partners are wiped out. Kennedy opts for enlisting in the Confederate Army. McCrea and Scott decide to go into gunrunning to make enough money to re-stock the ranch. McCrea makes enough, but Scott likes the profits and he wants to keep on gunrunning.As you can see the three partners all have different agendas. In fact everyone in this movie is working on his own agenda. The female leads Alexis Smith and Dorothy Malone have a hankering for McCrea. Victor Jory rides for the Union the Confederates and for himself. Bob Steele who's a slimy sort that Scott recruits in the gunrunning business has his own plans.Believe it or not it all jells into a very nice plot and is good entertainment. Joel McCrea was his usual stalwart hero as was Douglas Kennedy. Zachary Scott was no better than he had to be on any occasion. It's a good western and I wish it was shown more often.

This movie is filled with every cliche you can think of, and absolutely none of them work. The plot is predictable and the characters are not interesting, but boring. The acting is pretty bad, even by Joel McCrea. Even western fans should stay away from this one.

Joel McCrea, Zachary Scott and Douglas Kennedy are friends that get separated during the civil war. McCrea is going to marry Dorothy Malone, but he leaves her to find the outlaw that had destroyed his ranch.(Victor Jory). He ends up meeting Alexis Smith (great as always) who falls in love with him. Colorful and entertaining, directed by Ray Enright who was very good in this type of films.