The central idea of this Western might make an interesting revisionist tale in the hands of a feminist filmmaker but done via Universal 1956 it's just rapey.
It's set in Oklahoma 1842 where a local baron Herbert Rudley rules the area and has introduced a rule that if a woman is unaccompanied, the first man to get her, keeps her. His wife Yvonne de Carlo is attacked (raped?) and the guy blames his political enemy, John Gilmore who became John Gavin. The enemy is hung, his Indian wife Mara Corday therefore up for grabs and is snatched by another cowboy. Gilmore's brother Rory Calhoun arrives in town and goes abot looking for revenge.
There's a lot of plot in this film. In addition to all the stuff going on above, there's also Rex Reason as a mysterious gambler with his own agenda, Corday's Indian relatives, Rudley's offsider Neville Brand and his brother also want de Carlo.. And it's only 76 minutes.
Really there's too much going on. They would have been better off dealing with a few key strands better. Plots seem rushed like the Calhoun-de Carlo romance.
De Carlo looks fine is a professional - so is Calhoun. The best are Brand and Reason. It's good that Corday's Indian character has some status and is allowed to kill Rudley and go off. It makes no sense Calhoun lets Brand live - really it's just so Brand can come back at the end. Calhoun actually doesn't do that much in the film - Rudley is a strong villain but he's more defeated by the Indians, and Brand and his father. Also why is Reason in the film? He's enigmatic, he helps the heroes, then he's killed... why?
The colour is great, the handling slack, de Carlo's body double is very obvious in some scenes because the director handles them in mid shot over long takes.
And there's an unpleasant rapey stuff - de Carlo is raped, she's considered property by Rudley, Brand wants to own her and calls her his property, even Calhoun drags her off after a chase, and then she wants to be Calhoun's property at the end. Corday was presumably Gilmore's property, then becomes property of another cowboy Robert Wilke, then becomes Indian property.
It gets some points in that pretty much the entire white cast is dead at the end of the film instead of Calhoun and de Carlo - no wonder she wants to go off with him.
There's a ballad over the beginning and end credits.
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