Where has this cracking hard action hard riding hard action grade A western been all my life. I can hardly believe that i have missed it for so many years until i caught it on Film 4 tonight. The film has Glen Ford as the complex hero who hates violence but fights hard and brutally when cornered. Edward G Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck with Brian Keith make up the rest of a great A list cast all lined up against the immovable Glen Ford. With great big scale outdoor action all filmed with real scale that has hundreds of horses, and even more cattle, and scores of men, this is a western with epic above it's title. Here is a film that really uses the widescreen to the best effect with vista after vista of huge snow clad mountain ranges just on the horizon. The violence considered over done at the time (1955) seems routine now perhaps, but exactly why anyone in the fifties would of wanted to stay at home to google a 15" black and white flicker on a television set when the local cinema was showing a monument of a film like this escapes me. But then again i'm a movie going film buff. And this one thrilled me. A sound as a pound 8 from 10.

As this western opens rancher John Parrish is preparing to sell up and head back east with his fiancée but when the only buyer, Lew Wilkison of the Anchor Ranch, offers him a ridiculously low amount he declines the offer... even though he knows he will take it in the end as he promised his Fiancée he'd sell for whatever was offered. That is until one of his men is murdered by Wilkison's hired guns; to everybody's surprise Parrish shoots and kills the gunslinger responsible then returns to his ranch to prepare for war; and war is what he gets! Lew Wilkison might be the owner of the Anchor Ranch but it is his scheming wife and his brother Cole who really control it and they want Lew out of the way more than anybody. Soon Anchor men come and burn his ranch but he is prepared and not only does he manage to kill several of them he also returns the favour and burns Anchor to the ground... this leads to him being declared an outlaw for the murder of Lew Wilkison and a posse of gunmen sweeping into the valley to kill or burn out anybody who stood against Anchor... if Parrish is to put a stop to the killing he will have to face Cole; and only one of them will survive! This western certainly lives up to its title as heroes and villains alike use guns and fire to further their cause; the story of a powerful cattle baron trying to force everybody else off the land he wants isn't exactly original but it provides a good story with plenty of action. Glenn Ford puts in a solid performance as hero John Parrish but it is Barbara Stanwyck who steals the show as the wicked Martha Wilkison; the film's true villain. There is plenty of action to be seen here including shootings, a man being brutally whipped, an impressive cattle stampede and numerous ranches being torched. Director Rudolph Maté took full advantage of the widescreen presentation and the spectacular scenery to give it an epic feel even if it is only a B-Western. I would certainly recommend this to people who like their westerns packed with action.

I cannot believe anyone does not consider this film a classic. What is interesting is how despite the title it is the women who are the really strong characters. It starts with Barbara Stanwyck. Martha Wilkison is the most evil, immoral character that she ever played and that includes Lily Powers ("Baby Face"), Martha Ivers ("The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers) and even Phyllis Dietrichson ("Double Indemnity" (Interesting enough also with Edward G. Robinson)), the way she has both Lee (Robinson) and Cole (Brian Keith) wrapped around her finger (But not her daughter Judith (Dianne Foster)). But even beyond her, it is Caroline (May Wynn)and then Judith who have John Parrish (Glenn Ford) wrapped around their fingers, as does Elena (Lita Milan) with Cole. Spoilers ahead: You really see what Judith is about when (Spoilers ahead). 1: She tells off both Parrish and Lee, then she rides along with them, as they get ready for the final showdown against Cole & Martha. 2: The end of the film, when Judith asks Parrish to run her father's ranch, and Parrish says about her father finally getting his ranch, you can tell by the look, it will not be under Lee's terms (Or even Parrish's), rather, it will be Judith as the real power running things (Although she is not evil like her mother). For any western film fan it is a must (Particularly if they are a Stanwyck fan).

Pretty solid, entertaining western, could have been better, but worth watching.I was hooked for most of the first half; I particularly thought the scene where Ford (as Parrish) confronts Jaekel's character was thrilling, as was the scene where Ford tries some guerrilla warfare against the Anchor boys. But this scene also marked the turning point in the film where I started questioning small things.****THE REST OF THE REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS****In the scene where Parrish allows the thugs from Anchor to burn his ranch (in order to entrap them as they make their getaway), the dialogue between Parrish and the Warner Anderson character bugged me. The scene would have been better without so much talk. It seemed ridiculous. "You're going to let them burn the ranch?!" It was clear from the action - we didn't need it spelled out. In fact it's much more fun for the audience if they get to figure things out for themselves - even if they don't get it at first. Not sure I can explain it.(And then Anderson had a short speech - though it seemed long, in that particular situation - about how attached he was to the old place. I thought, "This guy must be driving Parrish to distraction with all this dull talk." It really diminished the suspense of the scene to have to listen to this nonsense.) Then, I found the ambush itself not very thrilling. And it seemed, from then on, nothing was really as good as it had been. Pretty good, but not as good. Not as believable.For one thing, the character played by Ford, the character that drove the plot up to that point, seemed to be pushed into the background, somehow, once the Anchor Ranch burned. (And where was he, anyway, in that scene?) It was almost as if the writer needed to beef up the role of the wife so that a big star like Barabara Stanwyck would agree to play it. It became more about her, and what I felt were her somewhat unbelievable actions following her assumption that she had caused her husband to die in the fire. I don't know why but I didn't buy this. She was a careful woman and an expert plotter and schemer. I think she would have somehow made sure he was dead before she went around stupidly acting as if he was. I'm not sure how she would have been able to verify it; nonetheless, going off half cocked was not very believable, it seemed more like a scripted plot twist than real life, and just served to remind me I was watching a movie. And a plot-heavy one, at that.I also felt that the film was trying to say something about mindless violence, and did so, very well, up to a point. Drawing us in by getting us frustrated at how Ford is being railroaded, then thrilling us when he does fight back, then allowing us to see that the violence, which at first seemed necessary, has gone out of control - all this was great, but the way Ford's character was written, he never really seemed to change. If he had seemed, at first, peaceful, then forced into violence, then consumed by revenge until it started eating at him, and the had some kind of epiphany - that would have been dramatically better than anything I saw on the screen. Also, I felt the film should have reached some kind of dramatic climax when the Dianne Foster character tells off the "violent men," but somehow it didn't come off.Another thing that was, unfortunately, weaker than necessary, was the bit where Stanwyck sees her husband alive and freaks out and runs off and gets killed by Brian Keith's little girlfriend. It was clear this was strictly to satisfy the production code. But this could have been done with finesse, and it was done rather poorly. It just wasn't directed well, so it came off like a "wtf?" moment instead of the scheming bitch getting her just deserts. (Part of this had to do with the film's failure to develop the Mexcan girl enough for us to care what she does. She just seems to be there to serve the plot.)As for the performances, they were pretty much excellent by the leads - Ford and Robinson were particularly great - as was Basil Ruysdael as a farmer whose son is killed by the Archor boys, and too many others to mention. May Wynn (from The Caine Mutiny, Columbia, 1954) though gorgeous, was somewhat weak as Ford's fiancée. The male actors were uniformly believable as western characters.Despite its faults it's an enjoyable and entertaining western - plenty of action, great location shooting, and a score by Max Steiner, too!The Anchor ranch had some pretty modern-looking furnishings - but this is typical of 50's westerns. All that seemed to be missing was the 32 inch TV set in one corner of the living room.