For a B western Ride The Man Down packs a lot of plot in its 90+ minute running time. It's a range war western, but it's complicated by the fact that several of the characters are really working their own agendas. It opens with the death during a blizzard of the death of a man who owned a large cattle spread.
He must have been a most strong and charismatic man holding his range together where boundaries apparently are not fixed things. His daughter and heir Ella Raines has lost a lot of her hands and relies now on foreman Rod Cameron to protect her interests. Cameron himself has ridden roughshod in the past over a lot of people to keep that land for his late employer.
Cameron's chief antagonist is Brian Donlevy, but Cameron has a lot of other enemies that only now are coming out because they think the local Ponderosa can't defend its interests any longer.
Besides those mentioned Ride The Man Down as an impressive cast list of familiar players like Forrest Tucker, Barbara Britton, Chill Wills, Taylor Holmes, Paul Fix, Roy Barcroft, Jim Davis, J. Carrol Naish, and Douglas Kennedy. All perform with the usual professional polish you would expect from this group. They all look western comfortable in their parts. Most have been in lots of westerns before others can adapt anywhere.
Ride The Man Down is a most adult western for a studio that churned out horse operas by the dozens every week for its Saturday afternoon kids. They watched their cowboys on television now and Republic now did its westerns for their parents. This one pretty good.
