You might think that a traditional Western played completely straight may not make for a very interesting film but it is! The plot is entirely conventional and ultimately predictable though the film keeps things interesting by having all of the characters be cautious about revealing their true motivations. Yet what really impresses me is how understated the action is, placing dramatic weight instead on the clash of personalities and integrity of the characters. This doesn’t seem to be a particularly well-known film and I don’t remember how it even got added to my list but it really is a film that deserves greater acknowledgement.

Amidst a storm, Ben Stride enters a cave for shelter and find two men already inside. Both sides are wary of one another until Bride reveals that he is coming from a town called Silver Springs where a robbery recently occurred. The two men are in fact two of the seven robbers involves and Stride is the former sheriff hunting them. He is the only one to walk out of the cave alive. Shortly afterwards Stride encounters John and Annie Greer, a couple whose wagon has gotten stuck in the mud. They are heading to California for a better life but seem unprepared for the wilderness. They ask to be allowed to accompany Stride to Flora Vista in the south. Strides agrees but wonders why they insist on going there first. Eventually they make it to a relay station that has been abandoned due to the threat of the Chiricahua Apache. There they meet two men, Bill Masters and Clete, who Stride knows from Silver Springs. They reveal that Stride’s wife was killed in the robbery and they want to join Stride’s hunt for the robbers as they had carried away a large fortune in gold.

This has many of the standard Western tropes: the stoic lone sheriff, the gang of bandits who turn on each other, hostile Native Americans as a looming threat, the woman who falls for the hero and so on. It’s all played completely straight with not one ounce of humor. Stride is portrayed as being a quick hand with his gun but is far from superhuman or infallible. He gets shot, knocked out and is really only able to take out the gang because they split up. What’s interesting is that the characters have some depth to them. Stride isn’t just grieving his wife but also regrets being too proud to accept a lesser job when he lost the election to be sheriff. Bill instantly pegs John as being a weak, spineless man and that seems to spur him to flirt with Annie ever more blatantly. Annie defends her husband and insists that he has his own virtues. The big surprise of this film is that it turns out to be true. It’s too bad that it is still regressive enough that it makes her unable to resist Stride and that it uses Native Americans as a threat looming in the background.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a film starring Randolph Scott before and it seems that he is most closely associated with the Western genre. He is just perfect in this role, exemplifying a competent common man who is decidedly not larger than life. Though I dislike the attraction Annie has for Stride, I do like that he turns her away firmly. In general, the film manages to work in a surprising amount of character development within a very short running time, which makes it feel more substantial. I also feel that it makes a statement that Bill’s bullying brand of masculinity is toxic and must be resisted.

I don’t mean to imply that this is a particularly great work and it’s arguable that the Western genre as a whole is unavoidably problematic and this is definitely not a revisionist work. Still this looks to me like a strong representative of the genre, limited as it must be, and deserves a look-in.