Barry Sullivan is Chaddock, a buckskin-clad Montana territorial marshal who shows up to bring peace to the town of Glory Hole. He expected to find a wild and wide open town. Instead, he finds a town of aging shopkeepers cowering under the orders of saloon owner Rep Marlowe, who’s working on a scheme that would give him control of a vast portion of that territory.
Marlowe has chased out many of the homesteaders by building a dam to cut off water to their land. More, including the Cody family, are preparing to leave for Oregon, convinced any battle with Marlowe is a losing battle. So Chaddock’s first order of business is dealing with that dam.
But trouble awaits in town as well, where Marlowe has the miners, a paid-for sheriff named Tangley and a scarred gunman named Patch ready to do his bidding. Only a few brave souls side with Chaddock; he’s hoping that’s at least enough to keep his young half-breed son safe,
Review:
John Russell turns in an interesting performance as Patch, out to settle an old score with Chaddock. Barbara Hale — best known as Dellla Street on Perry Mason — turns in a fine performance as a homesteader’s wife trying to deal with the harshness of the West.
But that’s about as far as the positives go on this one. You might be baffled as to why a marshal would drag a young son along to a town where nearly everyone wants to kill him. Then again, this Chaddock is one tough hombre. He continues a gunfight and blows up a dam after being bitten by a rattler mid-shootout.
Then, after nearly dying from said snake bite, he’s back on his horse the next day riding back to Glory Hole for a final showdown. My, oh, my.
Joan Caulfield plays the soiled school teacher turned saloon girl who Chaddock recruits to be a teacher for his son.
Directed by:
Michael Moore
Cast:
Barry Sullivan … Chaddock
Joan Caulfield … Nora Johnson
Wendell Corey … Rep Marlowe
Lon Chaney Jr. … Sheriff Tangley
John Russell … Patch
Barbara Hale … Sarah Cody
Barton MacLane … Doc Raymond
Bill Williams … Frank Cody
Leo Gordon … Travis
Jena -Michel Michenaud … Akii
George Chandler … Perkins
Aki Aleong … Sung Li
Michael Larrain … Jim Cody
Emile Meyer … Corbin
Runtime: 94 min.
Memorable lines:
Corbin: “If we don’t get that marshal out of town, we’ll all be killed. You know Marlowe.”
Doc Raymond: “We’ve all been dead for years. This whole town has been.”
Corbin: “Yeah, thing is, now we all get buried.”
Chaddock: “Mrs. Johnson, I understand you’re a school teacher.”
Nora Johnson: “That was somebody else from the county of once upon a time.”
Sheriff Tangley, of Patch: “Heh, what’s wrong with him?”
Marlowe: “He’s got another one of his headaches. I’m gettin’ sick of ’em.”
Sheriff: “You want I should cure his headaches for good.”
Marlowe: “What part of his back would you aim at?”
Marlowe: “People are like cards. If you know how to shuffle them, you always come out the winner.”
){kind=link}