Complete credited cast: | |||
Clint Walker | ... | Marshal Dave Harmon | |
Barry Sullivan | ... | Nels Decker | |
Kathryn Hays | ... | Julie Williams | |
Edgar Buchanan | ... | Mules McNeil | |
Morgan Woodward | ... | Arch King | |
Peter Mark Richman | ... | Maj. Lucas | |
John Kerr | ... | Capt. White | |
Bing Russell | ... | Rol King (as Neil Russell) | |
Bruce Glover | ... | Sam King | |
Robert Phillips | ... | Sanders | |
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Miguel Alejandro | ... | Andres |
Rudy Diaz | ... | Caballo | |
Bill McLean | ... | Storekeeper | |
Napoleon Whiting | ... | Orderly |
Dave Harmon is a United States Marshall, who has been sent by the governor to the territory of Yuma. It seems that the law is not welcomed there; every marshall that's been sent has been chased out. But Harmon is a different story, upon arriving, he encounters two drunks and asks them to come with him to cool off, one of them pulls a gun on him and shoots, Harmon with no other choice shoots him. He is told that the man he killed is the brother of Arch King, a powerful man, who adheres to only one law, his. Later that evening someone breaks into the jail and lets the other man out and shoots him with Harmon's gun. It seems that the other man is also King's brother. Most people think that Harmon shot him but a Mexican boy whom Harmon allowed to sleep on the floor of the jail said that it was two men and that one of them's a soldier. Harmon is then visited by King and is told that unless he can prove that he was not the one who killed his brother, King will be back and will deal with him... Written by <rcs0411@yahoo.com>
Clint Walker would have been a great movie cowboy had he born twenty years earlier. As it was he made his mark on television playing that most stoic of western characters in the title role of Cheyenne. In this film Yuma he brings his Cheyenne Bodie persona to the role of Dave Harmon, US Marshal sent to cleanup the lawless town of Yuma.
No sooner does he arrive in town than he's forced to kill the hotheaded brother of cattle baron Morgan Woodward. He arrests another brother, but later two men break him out of prison and then shoot him in the back. Unfortunately for them there was a witness, a young Mexican kid played by Miguel Alejandro who Walker has taken in.
Woodward is not a man given to calm discourse and that's what the people who shot him are counting on, that he will rid them of their new Marshal so that a nice little racket they have will go on unmolested. But Walker's witness leads to a nicely paced unraveling of the whole affair and a surprise ending, kind of tacked on, but still interesting.
Such players as Kathryn Hays, Peter Mark Richman, John Kerr, Barry Sullivan and Edgar Buchanan round out a cast of professionals that are comfortable in a sagebrush setting. Director Ted Post best known for Clint Eastwood classics Magnum Force and Hang 'Em High directed many a television western and he knew what he wanted and got it out of his cast.
Fifteen or even ten years earlier Paramount would have released Yuma to the big screen as a second feature in a double bill. Yuma will satisfy any western fan's appetite.