Bill Elliott plays Jim Kirk, a Wyoming rancher at a time when the going price for longhorns is plummeting. But Jim has a plan. He wants to breed his longhorn bulls with Hereford cows to create a new line of more profitable cattle.
He’s also a rancher with a problem. A man named Moresby with a hired gun named Latimer are after his beef and his money. And they can get all the inside information from Jim’s best friend, Andy (Myron Healey), who’s really not much of a friend at all.
In fact, Andy decides to go along with Jim to Oregon to fetch a herd of Hereford cows just so he can help Moresby rustle them on the way back to Wyoming. But an Indian bullet and a pretty girl named Gail (Phyllis Coates) with a knack for nursing and a knack for cooking might just change his mind.
Review:
If you’re looking for shades of gray in a Western, look elsewhere. Jim Kirk is as good as they come. Why, he’ll walk miles for summon help for a friend, take on former outlaws as trail hands without holding their past against them and he’s a handy hunter when meat runs low and he doesn’t want to sacrifice any of his Herefords to feed the men. If he has a weak spot, it’s for Gail Robinson, even though he knows his good friend also has eyes for her.
Elliott was a veteran of B Westerns, and this certainly plays like one. In terms of logic, just how do the badmen think they’re going to get away with rustling his herd of Herefords when there are supposedly no other cattle of the kind in all of Wyoming?
As for our cast, Phyllis Coates was very busy actress in the early 1950s. She even played Lois Lane in the short-lived TV series “The Adventures of Superman” after first taking the role in the 1951 film “Superman and the Mole-Men.”
This film was remade just a couple of years later as “Canyon River,” starring George Montgomery.
Directed by:
Lewis D. Collins
Cast:
Bill Elliott … Jim Kirk
Myron Healey … Andy
Phyllis Coates … Gail Robinson
I. Stanford Jolley … Charlie Robinson
Lane Bradford … Purdy
John Hart … Moresby ==
Marshall Reed … Latimer
William Fawcett … Ben (bartender)
Lee Roberts … Clark
Carol Henry … Frank
Zon Murray … Tyler
Runtime: 70 min.
Memorable lines:
“Selling 1,000 head of cattle doesn’t to me every day. But even at the chance of losing this sale, there’s something I’ve gotta say to you: You’re crazy.”
Jim Kirk: “Well, there’s no law against selling a crazy man cattle, is there?”
Purdy, during a barroom brawl: “I’m gonna keep getting up stranger. You’d better get your gun. You’re going to have to kill me to keep me down.”
Jim Kirk: “I don’t want to kill you. I want to hire you.”
Purdy: “Jim, with grub like this, we’ll drive your herd all the way to the Atlantic Ocean if you say so.”
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