I'm just getting into Randolph Scott movies, my usual Western diet consists mostly of John Wayne, Tom Selleck and Sam Elliot movies with a few Jimmy Stewart and Clint Eastwood tossed in for good measure, but so far I have about 8 movies he's in, all of them westerns except for My Favorite Wife which I got because I'm a Cary Grant fan.
If you like western movies, you'll enjoy this one. Scott and Marvin are good with Marvin standing out in almost every scene he's in, especially with Donna Reed and I really liked Claude Jarman Jr.'s performance playing the young man who's reluctant to pull the trigger and all of his scenes interacting with Jeanette Nolan (Mrs. Margaret Harris) and Clem Bevans (The Station manager and Nolan's father) are great. Plot is one that I've never seen in a western genre film before, Confederate soldiers don't know that the war is over and are on a mission to steal gold from Union troops, the lone solder from the Union detachment tells the confederate soldiers that the war had been over for a month just before he dies placing the men in a bad predicament.
This isn't a bad western, but its not one that I would recommend to individuals unless they are fans of the genre because it follows the tried and true western plot from beginning to end. Action starting off the movie with lots of drama and a little action to drive the plot along until you come to the inevitable shootout and fight to bring the story to its conclusion. Saying that may make it sound like I don't like the movie which isn't true, I do like it, the acting is great and the plot and dialogue stands out, it just doesn't contain anything that would make it stand out in such a way where individuals who are not fans of the genre would find it appealing. If you want a movie that will entice you to start watching the genre, start with something like The Cowboys with with John Wayne or Quigley Down Under with Tom Selleck, both of which I think will keep anyone's attention, but if you have seen everything that Selleck and Elliot has offered in the 90s and you want to see how the OG boys from the 40s and 50s did it, then you can't go wrong watching this.
