De Toth excelled at small and intense, and this is no exception. It's one of those great late-40s noir westerns, in the visual mold of My Darling Clementine. Crisp and McCrea are predictably solid, but an un-made up Veronica Lake steals the show in a hard and captivating role.

Precisely the sort of well-made, unpretentious Western that always gets underrated. It's not without faults, but consistently watchable and exciting