My take on this - Lewis Milestone didn't like the story, he wanted to change the story, he wasn't allowed to, but as a result he stuffed the story. And auterist critics gave him a pass, as auterist critics tend to do when it comes to famous directors, because they could blame "the studio".
The plot is entirely solid - there's nothing wrong with a story about someone pretending to be someone's long lost son, and falling in love with the man's daughter being being unable to do anything about it.
This movie stuffs that central situation. The man with the son (Finlay Currie) isn't rich, he owns a drought riddled property, so there's no money at stake - why would Lawford want Currie's farm? (I think Milestone got excited about the visual possibilities of drought and put it in, not thinking or caring about how that impacted the story, because he didn't care about the story.)
There's a little bit of romance between Lawford and Maureen O'Hara but not nearly enough... and no torment. Because what happens is Currie goes to O'Hara "oh he's your brother you can't be with him" then IN THE SAME SCENE Lawford goes "oh no I'm not your brother". So you've got no urst. Lawford should have turned up said "I'm your son" and then played out all that stuff... with him falling for O'Hara and not being able to make a move.
Other really solid potential story lines are thrown away - Chips Rafferty is meant to be in love with O'Hara (is that right?) but we never see him go after Lawford. (And why not a more handsome rival? Why not cast Charles Tingwell in that role?) Charles Tingwell pops up as this shady character and you think he's going to do something... but he doesn't. Why not have him as a villain in cahoots with Boone?
Richard Boone is fabulous but I think they made a mistake having him and Lawford meet instead of them being established as friends. The film seems continually uncertain how bad to make Lawford - he tries to rob Boone but fails, he's not part of the robbery.
Milestone seems only interested in sequences - a dust strewn water tower, a cattle drive, a corrborree, a battle with whips.
There's no dramatic build. No heart.
I get he didn't like the script and I haven't read the original script but it feels like he made it worse.
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