The only real positive distinction this movie has is Joel McCrea in the lead. He was terrific in westerns and he's very good in the this one. However, the plot is not great. 95% of all westerns basically boil down to 3 or 4 plots...and this one has the big baddie who is trying to take over the new state of California. Yep, Andrew Cain is yet ANOTHER big greedy baddie...a plot seriously overused in westerns. And, not surprisingly, there is a hot babe who comes between the two men (Yvonne DeCarlo).
While the acting is good an makes up for the dullness of the plot, there is something that retired history teachers would not like about this film--the highly inaccurate details. The guns are all circa 1870s and the set clearly is a typical western set--but it's supposed to be San Franciso in the 1850s. Hand guns were almost never revolvers and very few folks in the town would have been walking about in cowboy apparel. After all, by then it was an up and coming coastal city...not Deadwood or some other western locale.
So is this one worth seeing? Well, possibly. McCrea is great...he almost always is. But the plot might be too familiar and you need to look past the fact that it's not at all historically accurate.
While the acting is good an makes up for the dullness of the plot, there is something that retired history teachers would not like about this film--the highly inaccurate details. The guns are all circa 1870s and the set clearly is a typical western set--but it's supposed to be San Franciso in the 1850s. Hand guns were almost never revolvers and very few folks in the town would have been walking about in cowboy apparel. After all, by then it was an up and coming coastal city...not Deadwood or some other western locale.
So is this one worth seeing? Well, possibly. McCrea is great...he almost always is. But the plot might be too familiar and you need to look past the fact that it's not at all historically accurate.