Four men scheduled to be hanged escape, kill the sheriff and three other men, and kidnap Zohra Lampert for their personal amusement. Deputy Audie Murphy forms a posse of untried men to pursue them.
It's an Audie Murphy western, and so most of the scenes center around him. Happily for the movie, he's up to it, with a grim attitude and a lack of concern for details in how he gets the job done. John Saxon is an easterner stuck out west for some reason. Drafted into the posse, he is at first more concerned with what it's going to do to his clothes and his inexperience at riding a horse; nonetheless, he's game. Other performers are also good, as the movie western slides from the simple tropes of the classic B western towards the darkness of the violent spaghetti western. There's still a veneer of law and order, but it's more about order at any price.
DP Clifford Stine spent more of his career doing second-unit work than main photography, but he shoots the Alabama Hills as grimmer than any other movie I've seen. They're not just a backdrop, they're physically oppressive.
It's an Audie Murphy western, and so most of the scenes center around him. Happily for the movie, he's up to it, with a grim attitude and a lack of concern for details in how he gets the job done. John Saxon is an easterner stuck out west for some reason. Drafted into the posse, he is at first more concerned with what it's going to do to his clothes and his inexperience at riding a horse; nonetheless, he's game. Other performers are also good, as the movie western slides from the simple tropes of the classic B western towards the darkness of the violent spaghetti western. There's still a veneer of law and order, but it's more about order at any price.
DP Clifford Stine spent more of his career doing second-unit work than main photography, but he shoots the Alabama Hills as grimmer than any other movie I've seen. They're not just a backdrop, they're physically oppressive.