Jon Hall became a star (or at least a name) very fast with his lead role in The Hurricane but was kept off screen for a number of years afterwards by Sam Goldwyn as the producer looked for a follow up. Eventually Hall started popping up in a number of movies; this was his first Western, and he's uncomfortably cast... it explains why he fairly quickly settled into sarong and sword adventures only.
It's a shame because otherwise this is an unpretentious, well-constructed Western, typical of the movies Edward Small made around this time - decent production values, strong cast, copies other movies. This seems to borrow the Dodge City template of an adventurer and his two pals who get involved in adventures out west. The trio are Jon Hall (title role), Ward Bond and Harold Huber; there's a love triangle between Hall and army captain Dana Andrews over Lyn Bari (weird seeing her in period clothes, I was used to seeing her in big band dramas) and a serviceable plot about Hall and company escorting an wagon trail across country.
The love triangle got confusing but there is plenty of action including a good old Indian attack of the wagons with the womenfolk helping fire the rifles and a climax where the Americans team up to kick the Mexicans out of California (it's set just prior to the Mexican-US War). I enjoyed seeing a young Andrews and Ward Bond could play this role in his sleep already. But Hall's performance is bad and the more lines he's given the worse he is and it almost wrecks the film.
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