This is the second Mann/Stewart collaboration I've watched and I'm just not sure if I'm feeling them. I have a really hard time buying Jimmy Stewart as some sort of hardened badass gunslinger.

Few westerns focus on character development, and this is one of them. The performances are great all around, but perhaps what catches the eye the most, aside from the fact that this is a psychological western, is that it's filmed almost entirely outdoors and there are not sets at all. A different experience for western lovers, very much worth watching.

The luscious technicolor photography of mountainous landscape is better than the script. The plot is complicated, but it never once departs from the tried and tested formulas. The misfit team questing to collect a bounty but unable to trust each other, the gratuitous massacre of Indians, the sentimental love drivel, the hysterical female character, the overbearing, at times nauseating orchestral music. The very dialogue seems to contain more clichés than meaningful words.

Not even James Stewart kan save this.

I really enjoyed how the film gradually erodes the civility of the characters, until the only way to express themselves is through violence. Not one of my favorite westerns, but I'm glad I watched it.

I really love how this was shot and it kept me on the edge of my seat (well, I was lying down half the time but it gets pretty suspenseful), but it didn't knock my socks off or anything. The dynamic between Stewart and Leigh's characters just felt off, which is kind of a big blow to how things go along, though I still enjoyed the film.

What you might call a 'noir western' in bright technicolor! The tight scripted plot is full of emotional twists and some lost and cynical characters seduced by lust and greed. Stewart and Ryan has seldom been darker than here.

A makeshift posse of three strangers catch an outlaw with a $5000 bounty on his head and must try to work together to collect, despite the outlaw scheming to fuel their mistrust of each other. Jimmy Stewart gets top billing but the star of the show is Robert Ryan as the conniving cattle rustler who unerringly picks out each man's Achilles heel and attacks it verbally. Janet Leigh is there as a plot device, but doesn't have much to do except make coffee and scream when the bullets start flying.

i fail to see the moral dilemma here, the guy's there to catch a murderer who he's never met to bring him back to a sure death and receive five thousand dollars, there's some sort of conflict derived from that supposed moral dilemma. if it were me i'd take that guy in and sleep like a baby afterward. thus this movie becomes completely pointless.

Jimmy Stewart's always good, but the film looks a bit garish, most of the characters lack believable motivation, the villain is a bit too snarly and the ending is terrible.

I must say I was a bit disappointed by this one. Despite a cool cast, director and Sierra Madre-like situation, the picture somehow failed to involve me (I was thinking it might have been a bit more gripping in black & white btw). Meeker and Ryan seem intent upon having a grinning contest throughout the film (I'm not sure who won). It is perhaps Leigh who comes out of the pack to give the best performance here.

This is a well made western. The plot keeps things interesting right to the end of the film. The characters are all well played. Jimmy Stewart is of course great. If you like westerns definitely check this one out.

#772

Decent Western story brought down by inconsistent acting and technicolor that doesn't work well with the setting or the themes. It was an ok way to spend 90 minutes but I didn't get anything special from it.

723

One of the best Westerns ever made: a tough, hard little film. Strikingly directed and photographed (by William Mellor) on location in the Rockies.

Awesome. It's cool to see James Stewart playing a real mean character, rather than his usual Dudley Do-Right. But wtffffff at the ending!

Perhaps the greatest of the Mann-Stewart westerns. Robert Ryan's villain is one of his finest performances, and Ralph Meeker and Janet Leigh do some of their best work here as well.

Mostly predictable but the whole thing is executed so well that it doesn't matter if you see everything coming, it still bears the same weight on the story.

745

I don't really LOVE Mann's westerns, but he almost always seems to do a very fine job with them. A really solid script, beautiful Technicolor photography (all shot on location), tight plotting, strong characters and good performances from Stewart et al (Janet Leigh could have been better). This one doesn't really have that something special to push it over the top, but without any glaring flaws, it's quite satisfying.