Untamed Frontier

Scott Brady, scion of the local big ranch, shoots Shelley Winters' boyfriend. To avoid her testifying against him, he marries her, but the marriage is unconsummated. Instead, she becomes friendly with his cousin, Joseph Cotten in this visually interesting Universal western.

Director Hugo Fregonese gives cinematographer Charles Boyle his head, with lots o high lights in dark backgrounds. Notice the large number of twilight long shots, and medium grey walls with black shutters, couches and ironmongery. Could the print I looked at be darker than intended? that's always a possibility, of course, but I think the choice was deliberate, to yield a worn parchment look to the movie; even Miss Winters' hair looks more grey than blonde; this makes the white-faced cattle and the occasional splashes of bright color far more dramatic. Long shadows in the brightest-lit scenes give them a "late afternoon" look, as if to indicate the end of the day of ranch's dominance.

While the visuals of the movie make it interesting, and the acting talent is impeccable -- that's Minor Watson as the head of the ranch; if you look hard, you can see Lee van Cleef and Fess Parker (in his first screen appearance) in the cast. Yet this early attempt to make a soap-opera western seems a bit overblown to my B-movie-loving taste.