The Marshal of Mesa City

County Sheriff Leon Ames is stuck on schoolmarm Virginia Vale, and his henchmen slug anyone who speaks to her. She decides to leave town, but the henchmen hold up the stagecoach, only to be thwarted by well-mannered George O'Brien. He's a retired lawman on his way to his new ranch, but escorts the lady back to town, then stays over to the dance, and then gets cajoled by mayor Lloyd Ingraham into becoming town Marshal.

George O'Brien's western series for RKO in the late 1930s were arguably the best of the lot, even if he hated the way his career was going. This movie with a "Gunfight at the OK Corral" feel -- there's Henry Brandon slightly miscast as the gunslinger hired to kill him, but charmed into becoming his deputy -- is a remake of 1935's THE ARIZONIAN. Leon Ames makes a fine villain, and Miss Vale reminds me a bit of Loretta Young. Harry Wild's camerawork is well up to his usual standard. Mostly, though, it's O'Brien giving a fine performance as a man who knows his job and does it intelligently that appeals to me.