A group of religious people led by Dennis O'Keefe are in a wagon train to California. Up comes John Payne, murderer, and his five associate, escaped from prison. They join the train, boss it around, insult the women, and generally make a mess of the passage.
It's a Pine-Thomas production, and shows the canny production values of the Dollar Bills. They used a well-worn but serviceable story, one with which the audience would be familiar with and comfortable seeing again. They employed a competent, journeyman director in Lewis R. Foster. They had a cast list of recognizable and skilled performers in Frank Faylen, Mary Anderson, Mary Beth Hughes, Griff Barnett, Richard Travis, and Dooley Wilson, available reasonable sums. And they got a great cameraman in his first year of being the Director of Photography on a picture, in a career that would encompass four nominations for best cinematography and one win in Loyal Griggs. Clearly they knew how to pick talent.
Griggs had been working in the camera department and as a cameraman at Paramount for 27 years before he got a credit as DP, and he proceeded to waste no time. He had already shared a special Academy Award with the rest of Paramount's effects department, before Technical Achievement became its own category. In 1954 he would win the Best Color Cinematography Award for Shane, and be nominated three more times over the next dozen years. He would retire in 1971 and die in 1978 at the age of 71.
