Stranger on the Run

I was very impressed with this, and nearly gave it an 8. (I can't remember the last time I gave a film 9.)

Henry Fonda (wearing a rather obvious wig) proves again his versatility, this time as a drunk. It's not giving much away to say that he does redeem himself, but not in a super-heroical way. Dan Duryea is always excellent value, though I did wonder at his apparently wearing the same glasses (furtively)to read newsprint and for distance vision. (Usually one needs different prescriptions.)

I saw the film courtesy of Youtube, and the sound wasn't great in places, so I didn't grasp why the men that Fonda came across were so keen to ambush the railroad police (and some of them did seem rather rash in the gunfight when it came to firing in full view of the other side).

The "town" where much of the action took place looked realistic, and Anne Baxter as Valverda Johnson was reasonably attractive as a self-sufficient homesteader without having the unbelievable glamour of so many leading ladies in Westerns.

The photography was good, especially a panoramic scene of a train entering the town.

Well worth viewing.