Day of the Outlaw

Blaise Starrett is a large cattle owner. The homesteaders settling around the town are stringing wire and closing the range; Starrett is against it and rides in to settle with one man. He also has a past with that man's wife. Just as he is about to draw, the door opens. Seven men come in. At their head is Jack Bruhn, a former army officer, and he is wounded. The group has stolen army gold and a detachment is behind them. Bruhn is barely holding his men. The town is taken hostage and the only way out is a pass closed by snow. André de Toth directs. Robert Ryan plays Starrett and Burl Ives plays Bruhn; Tina Louise is in the cast. It was shot in black and white and the exteriors done in real snow; the crew worked long stretches in the cold. The matter it treats is the fragility of authority; Bruhn holds his men by fear alone and that fear can end at any moment. Its most cited section is a dance; the outlaws dance with the women of the town and the scene is held long. The narrative does not meet the western's expectation of a duel; the conflict is settled not by guns but by endurance. The last section takes place in snow and nature works as the real enemy. Robert Ryan's character is not built as a hero; the narrative shows him in the wrong from the start. Its limit is scale; the budget is small, the cast limited and it runs short. Who it is for: viewers who like hard westerns and thrillers in confined spaces. Who it is not for: it is bleak, the pace slow, and the women thinly written.