Entertaining Universal Western, with the studio ponying up for some good production value (timber, a riverboat, saloons) and colour. It's not a bad story either, as riverboat lady Yvonne de Carlo pursues roughneck Rod Cameron, who is also desired by good girl Helena Carter, daughter of John MacIntire; dodgy Dan Duryea loves de Carlo.
Everyone's motivations are clear and strong and its all underpinned by emotion. Cameron isn't quite charismatic enough to make you (or me at any rate) believe that de Carlo and Carter would pant all over him but he's okay - and I guess his character has talent and ambition and a leader, which would be attractive.
De Carlo is ideally cast as a riverboat lady - she looks great and is in fine form, even singing a song. I wish more of the action had focused on her. De Carlo's characters generally got to keep the guy in her first few movies of stardom but as time went on she would lose them to other women eg Casbah, Calamity Jane and Sam Bass. Here she loses out to good girl Helena Carter.
Which is a bit sexist - especially all that stuff about Cameron being insulted a woman bails him out.
However Carter was a real surprise packet for me - lively, sparky, with some clever dialogue. She goes after Cameron actively, in part because its a rebellious act and she's clearly sexually attracted to him. Carter is pretty and has real personality on screen - I'm surprised she didn't have more of a career.
Dan Duryea is also very good as the shady man with a yen for de Carlo. I wish he'd been used more - actually the whole movie could've been better, it seemed to be building to a top rank melodrama that never happened. But it is colourful and fun.
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