While free-spirited cowboys Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) and Art Croft (Harry Morgan), from a nearby town, are in the bar at Bridger’s Wells, word comes that beloved rancher Kinkaid was killed and his cattle rustled. Warning: spoiler to follow in this paragraph. It’s the story of three innocent men in 1885, in the small sleepy Nevada town of Bridger’s Wells, who on flimsy evidence of rustling and then killing the rancher are hanged by a blood-thirsty lynch mob. This would normally bum a Western picture out that depends on location shots, but in this case it set a noir mood of claustrophobia and only added to the tension. Zannuck had no confidence such a serious Western could make money.

The film was shot entirely on sound sets in the studio, as studio head Darryl F. It holds up as the best anti-lynching film ever made, and makes a good companion piece to LeRoy’s They Won’t Forget and Lang’s Fury. It’s tautly scripted by producer Lamar Trotti. Wellman (“Wings”/”The Public Enemy”/”Battleground”) bases this stark, lyrical and somber Western about frontier justice on the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark.

“It holds up as the best anti-lynching film ever made.”ĭirector William A. Tetley), Marc Lawrence (Farnley), Victor Kilian (Darby), Willard Robertson (Sheriff), Chris-Pin Martin (Poncho), Leigh Whipper (Sparks), Dick Rich (Deputy Butch Mapes), Francis Ford (Old Man), Frank Orth (Kinkaid) Runtime: 76 MPAA Rating: NR producer: Lamar Trotti Twentieth Century-Fox 1942) Mockridge cast: Henry Fonda (Gil Carter), Dana Andrews (Donald Martin), Mary Beth Hughes (Rose Mapen), Anthony Quinn (Juan Martinez), William Eythe (Gerald Tetley), Harry Morgan (Art Croft), Jane Darwell (Ma Grier), Matt Briggs (Judge Daniel Tyler), Harry Davenport (Arthur Davies), Frank Conroy (Maj. Wellman screenwriters: Lamar Trotti/based on the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark cinematographer: Arthur Miller editor: Allen McNeil music: Cyril J.

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