Day of the Outlaw (1959)

Don't tell anyone interested in preventing suffering to horses about the closing sequences as sure as eggs is eggs the equine stars of this movie really did have to struggle through real snowdrifts and not the type made by a machine. Robert Ryan was magnificent but I could not help feeling that he should have gone the same way as the rest of the baddies. Burl Ives too was superbly cast but why was he appearing in such a rugged black and white if he was already by then a Folk Singing Star ? And was the Nelson Baddie an early reincarnation or just a relative of Willie Nelson ? The rest of them would not have had that long to wait for Sergio Leone and the Spaghetti Westerns. I met a couple of the latter some time back and they were both absolute charmers. The making could not have been much fun for the four women either but they all were just as stoical as one would have expected such frontiers women to have been. All in all a thoroughly good watch.