This is a message post-Civil War western. Unfortunately, it espouses 2 conflicting messages: (1)When the local judicial system is inadequately present, or present in a corrupt or prejudicial form, it is a natural right of the injured and threatened to defend themselves or extract equal revenge against the perpetrator(s).(2) No matter how inadequate, corrupt or prejudicial the local judicial system is, it is the duty of individuals harmed by it or by others to submit to the existing judicial system. Those who attempt to take the law into their own hands are subject to prosecution no matter how seemingly valid their reason. After exercising the first of these messages, the film ends upholding the second message. I suspect the production code people weren't about to pass a film which glorified rebellion and vigilantism as sometimes necessary to achieve real justice........John Payne, in his first western, is the main protagonist. He's a lawyer, newly arrived from Charleston, S.C., who objects to the methodology of the first trial he sees here. After several killings of his friends and the judge for thumbing their noses at the corrupt Sheriff Lafarge(Dick Fortran), he becomes the leader of a sizable group of rebels who go about searching for, killing and perhaps burning the houses of the friends of the Sheriff(whom I will refer to as loyalists). The climax of the film consists of an all out gun battle in the middle of El Paso between the rebels and loyalists. This is complicated by the occurrence of a very violent dust storm that made visibility and walking difficult. After a number of each are killed, the two groups ride out of town, meeting at a river, where the loyalists, outnumbered, surrender. Several are about to be strung up when Clay arrives with the demand that the ropes be taken off their necks. He's a born again legalist, advocating that the sheriff and other loyalists be tried for real or suspected crimes. Thus, from the viewer's viewpoint, the film ends on a rather unsatisfactory note, as the sheriff is neither dead nor visibly in jail, while the victors march down the street in parade formation. ........Gail Russell, the female lead, plays Susan Jeffers, daughter of the usually inebriated judge. She's Clay's girlfriend, a relationship threatened by his sojourn into vigilantism. She is a major voice warning him that this is not the solution...... One of the victims of the loyalists is Clay's grandfather: a judge from Charleston. Just why he came to El Paso is not discussed. Perhaps this was detailed in some discarded footage? Edwardo Noriega played Nacho Vazquez, who saved Clay from a tormenting saloon crowd, and taught him how to be an effective gunslinger..... Much bewhiskered Gabby Hayes generates some amusement playing a simpleton trader, who's always getting cheated by Mexican Joe......Stagecoach Nellie(Mary Beth Hughes) is another clownish character. She devised an inventive way to practice pickpocketing. While riding in a stage, she emphasizes that Indians or bandits often attack the stage, then offers to hide the men's wallet in her things. If the man forgets to retrieve his wallet at the end of the run, she takes it to her room and divests it of currency. If the man complains, she pleads that there was no money in it. Of course, this only works under ideal conditions of a novice, no tattletale in the stage, and forgetful victims.
