Some time ago, stage-coach-robbing brothers Joe Partridge and Eric Matthews killed Harry Lauter's sister. He has been chasing them since. Marshall Red Barry has captured them and is taking them to prison by stage, and Lauter means to exact vengeance, though his wife tells him she won't be there when he returns. Others are there, too. Hannah Hertelendy, the robbers' mother is on the stage, and a drummer with a very large pistol...
The American B western had vanished under the assault of television. In 1965, the TV western was not in great shape and there was still a market for the darker western. 20th Century-Fox could always use one to offer for double or triple features, and if you could keep the budget down, you could give some professionals jobs and make yourself a few dollars, just like in the old days of the cinematic west. And that is what this was: classic, simple story, competent actors (mostly; I think Jodi Mitchell as Barry's wife offers poor line readings), some decent direction by Lesley Selander and the wide-open camerawork that was often the best part of the old B Western.
In many ways, it looks like a large and gracefully shot, serious episode of a TV western. It is distinguished by Gordon Avil's black-and-white cinematography of the badlands near Kanab, Utah -- John Ford Country, but contrary to legend, a lot of people shot westerns there. Lynn Reynolds was the first in 1924, a decade and a half before Ford first went there for DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK. Avil was born in Philadelphia in 1899. His career as a cinematographer began in 1929. By 1930, he had worked on King Vidor's BILLY THE KID. In 1931, it was THE CHAMP, again for Vidor. Then his screen credits vanished for 16 years. He returned to the camera in B movies and television work. After camerawork on a third of the episodes of HOGAN'S HEROES, he retired. He died of a heart attack in the Barbados in 1970.
