Man in the Saddle

Some of the reviews here nearly dissuaded me from watching this film, which doesn't seem to have been screened much on British TV (certainly I was unaware of it), whereas the Boetticcher and other later Scott Westerns are shown regularly.

"MITS" compared very well indeed with these, and the plot was different to those of "stranger riding into town and trouble"). It's been remarked that Scott was a bit old for the two female leads, but that was the case in many of his later Westerns (and Gary Cooper's too). The colour photography also added to my enjoyment of the film. It was good to see Guinn Williams in a role that wasn't his "comic sidekick" one, and also John Russell as a jealous admirer. Joan Leslie's romantic vacillations were a bit unconvincing, as were the final scenes.

Unlike at least one previous reviewer, I didn't notice the differing appearances of Scott and his fight stand-in, and I doubt that cinema viewers in the early 1950s did either.

(I've just checked the date of release, and was a little surprised, as the film had the "look" of one made late in the decade or even the early 1960s.)

I'm glad that I watched it.