The Night of the Grizzly

Sheriff Big Jim Cole turns in his badge and settles in Wyoming with his family, meaning to build a ranch on land left to him by a relative. There are two problems. One is the neighbour who wants that same land for his own sons. The other is a grizzly known as Satan; the animal is killing the stock one by one and nobody can stop it. Joseph Pevney's film is one of the family westerns of the sixties: wide landscapes, children, dogs and a single large threat. Clint Walker plays Cole. The telling does not quite make a villain of the animal; it sets it up as two sides coming up against each other over the same ground. Ron Ely and Keenan Wynn are also in the cast. The nature photography takes up more room than the story does.