Good movie but grossly overrated

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Nate Blaine (Dane Clark) has been gone for many years--so long that his son doesn't even know he's alive. At first, his sister-in-law wants Nate to stay away and let her raise the boy in peace but she relents when Nate appears to be trying, in his way, of turning over a new leaf. However, later after Nate teaches his son the ways of an outlaw, the aunt is so worried that she lies following a robbery--saying she saw Blaine commit the crime when he really didn't. Blaine escapes and the boy grows up in the shadow of his father's criminal ways.Dane Clark was a very good actor--even though he's not commonly remembered today. I always remember him as the guy who looks an awful lot like Richard Conte--and, like Conte, excelled in contemporary films--especially crime films. However, very oddly, here Clark is playing, along with his Brooklyn accent, in a western--a genre for which he certainly is not well known--and after watching this film, I can understand why. It isn't that Clark is bad--he's actually pretty good. The problem is the film itself--much of it (especially the son's motivation) isn't all that good. The son's transition from lawman to criminal is so abrupt and ridiculous that it severely impacted the film. I also was annoying with the climactic fight on the stage coach--the baddie had a gun and neither did Nate or his son--yet the baddie fights them with his fists. If he's bad, then he'd shoot...unless he was very, very stupid! A time-passer at best.

Dane Clark is pretty good in this movie, but it's an unconvincing effort overall. It takes a 1950s story -- absent father trying to re-establish a connection with his son, resentful child raiser that formed the basis of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and tries to place it in an Old West setting.As a result, it calls attention to the fact that it's a costume drama. It gives the impression that everyone is playing Dress Up, like putting on Pilgrim costumes to talk about the Taliban. The dramatic and clearly 1950s music score doesn't help.What does help is the clean and elegant cinematography of William Margulies. He was a cameraman in the Bs who graduated to D.P. just as the Bs were shutting down, so he went into TV work, where his style enlivened such excellent TV oaters of my childhood as HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL.

If from one side this film will bring you back the pleasure of seeing a black and white B western from the sixties (seems more from the fifties), on the other side the overacting by most of the actors and the cuts that reminds you of (and could be) commercial breaks from TV movies will put you off. It is surprising that Lesley Selander, a director from so many westerns, will be behind such a poor quality job. Nevertheless the film is entertaining in a trashy way as you follow the story of a gunfighter Nate Blaine (Dane Clark) who comes to a town to see his son, Jeff (Joseph Stafford) who is taken care of by his sister in law Ruth (Ellen Drew). Nate ends up making life more difficult for Jeff, who grows up (Ben Cooper) and tries to make up for his father's dirty name. Jeff has two love interests, played by Lori Nelson and Cecile Rogers. The screenplay goes well up to the end where it becomes unconvincing. Bellow average western.