Despite a muddled script and a barrel bottom budget, this stark little b&w western remains oddly fascinating, even among today's color fests.
Check out that barren New Mexico desert that never leaves the eye for the hour-plus runtime. It's a perfect backdrop for the six guys and one gal trapped by Comanches in the lonely spaces. The travelers are basically on-foot now that their wagon's been overturned by the warriors. Good thing a more peaceful Indian group just wants to keep them off their sacred burial grounds, but otherwise just keeps them under a watchful eye.
Worse than the Indians, the guys find gold dust while rooting around for water, thus introducing a fresh and maybe more ominous set of complications. So now they're trapped not only by Comanches but by their own mounting greed, especially when Adler finds nuggets on the sacred burial ground -- no wonder the Indians keep watching them. It's that combination that really distinguishes the plot, even though the connecting threads are often obscure (or maybe that's just me).
Anyhow, it's a distinguished cast, laid low by looming Hollywood blacklist, and willing to take on even bottom barrel Lippert Pictures and a rapid 8-day shooting schedule. It's a strappingly adventurous Lloyd Bridges, a forceful Lee J. Cobb, a sneaky little Luther Adler, and an unexpectedly compliant Marie Windsor, a long way from her usual heartless vixens. Anyway, none are particularly likable or dislikable, sort of like many everday encounters.
Note too the underlying subtext of how the panned gold and nuggets should be distributed among the six men and maybe the woman. Should it be an equal division or should each keep his own findings, or maybe even extract from others, that is, if they can agree on amounts, or, worse, just plain get away with stealing it. I'm not surprised, given the political climate of the early '50's, that such a distribution question would be raised ( competing modes of socialism or capitalism). Doing it, however, within this context is especially distinctive.
No, the flick doesn't rise to the level of hidden gem, but does manage a sort of primitive earth spell. So, don't pass it up. The compensations are there.
