Reformed criminal Gary Cooper is stranded in the middle of nowhere - with Julie London and Arthur O'Connell (Anatomy of a Murder) - which just happens to be right near where his evil uncle Lee J. Cobb brought him up, cueing dialogue:
"I used to live here once."
"When you were a boy?"
"I don't know what I was."
The screenplay is by Reginald Rose (12 Angry Men, Baxter!, The Zoo Gang), from Will Brown's novel. With Jack Lord, Royal Dano.
The ending is quite good - a mining town where the bank job is supposed to take place is a ghost town - here the widescreen is used quite well but elsewhere the mise en scène is stilted (e.g. scene where gunman points revolver at Cooper for five minutes, doing nothing else). Cooper seems miscast, London doesn't have much to do, the conclusion is a let-down. Not a great western, photographed by Ernest Haller, indifferent music by Leigh Harline.
I find the suggestion that London has been raped at the end totally gratuitous.
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