Based on a short story by Elmore Leonard which covers the action from where farmer (in the story, Marshal) Van Heflin (kind of in Shane mode again) arrives at Contention with his prisoner bandit Glenn Ford, waiting for the train while the gang surround them. Writer Halstead Wells has opened this up to tell of the stagecoach holdup which starts everything going, Heflin's wife (Leora Dana) and two kids, and a brief relationship between Ford and bargirl Felicia Farr.
I'm not sure quite how credible the ending is but it's an engaging and suspenseful ride. Ford is good as super-confident bandit, though when he says "I've escaped from Yuma before" it's almost like "well what's the point in any of this?"
With Henry Jones (drunk who in the Hollywood way amazingly just does not need a drink when the eleventh hour comes), Richard Jaeckel, Robert Emhardt (stagecoach owner). Music by Charles Durning, photography by Charles Lawton, who also shot Daves' next film, Cowboy. A Columbia picture.
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