Walter Brennan stars as Judge Roy Bean, the legendary self appointed law west of the Pecos in Texas. He uses whoever happens to be in his saloon as a jury, and the penalty of death is often dispensed for killing or stealing the animals of others.
At this time Cole Harden (Gary Cooper) is brought to the judge for stealing a horse. Cole claims he bought this horse, although he admits the person he bought it from may have stolen it from the original owner. The judge is not impressed, and he can tell neither is the jury. So while the jury deliberates, Cole makes conversation with the judge, figures out he is obsessed with British actress Lillie Langtry, and talks about the time he met her, and about the lock of her hair that he has back in El Paso. Then the jury comes back with the expected guilty verdict. The judge defers Cole's sentence until he can look into matters more, since he says that no friend of Lillie Langtry could be a horse thief. Plus Bean really wants to hear more of Cole's tales of meeting Lillie Langry, and he really wants to see that lock of hair. Later, luck would have it that the actual horse thief wanders into Judge Bean's bar. When Cole shows that he still has the sixty dollars that he paid for the horse on him, there is a shootout and Bean shoots the actual thief dead, freeing Cole.
What I just described is the best part of the film. And I really haven't spoiled anything by telling you this since the art of it is in Brennan's and Cooper's delivery and the chemistry that they had together. But because an entire feature film is needed, there is a significant subplot about the judge being pro cattleman and thus backing people who sabotage the farming homesteaders nearby. This subplot is not that compelling and neither is the romance between Cooper's Cole and one of the daughters of the homesteaders, played by Doris Davenport. Davenport wasn't a very interesting actress, and she had only one other credited role the same year this film came out before leaving acting entirely.
I'd say watch it for probably the best thing Walter Brennan ever did and the great chemistry he had with Gary Cooper, but that the rest of the film, when Cooper and Brennan are not interacting, can be a bit of a bore.
