What makes it different from others?

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A virtual Western remake of the notorious crime drama The Asphalt Jungle by John Huston that was based on the novel written by W.R. Burnett , but you'd certainly never prefer it to this classic Film Noir .Turn of the century Nevada, 1888 Arizona Federal Prision , Ladd and Borgnine are two inmates who get their freedom . Released from Yuma prison , their destinies eventually converge in the mining town of Precott . But Ladd seeks vendetta from the people of the small mining town that accused him wrongly , while Borgnine wants to go straight . Later on , the excons scheming a robbing but they are not sure whether they can trust each other enough to stick with the difficult plan they are devised to reclaim the property that's rightfully theirs . Then , things go wrong when they agree a covenant with a powerful and suspicious owner , Kent Smith. The plot is simple in the wake of Noir Films , it has two ex convicts who plan a gold robbery against Kent Smith who cheated them out of their share in a gold mine ; meanwhile , Alan Ladd and Ernest Borgnine fall for two beautiful women , Claire Kelly and Katy Jurado . It contains thrills , suspense , intrigue , amiable rough-house humour , cross and double cross. Main cast is pretty good such as the sober Alan Ladd and sensational Ernest Borgnine as the tough and honorable ex-inmate. Being accompanied by two attractive girls as Claire Kelly and Katy Jurado as an ex-whore . Support cast is frankly good such as Nehemiah Persoff, Anthony Caruso , Ford Rainey , Robert Emhardt , Adam Williams , Karl Swenson and Kent Smith. Spectacular ciinematography in CinemaScope, Technicolor , shot in Tucson Arizona , by John Seitz , as well as moving and thrilling stock-soundtrack . The motion picture was well produced by Aaron Rosenberg and compellingly directed by Delmer Daves . Delmer was a cool Hollywood filmmaker who shot all kinds of genres , as Noir : Dark passage, The red house ; Drama: Parrish , A summer place , Never let me go ,Rome adventure ; Adventure : Treasure of the golden condor , Demetrius and the gladiators ; Wartime : Destination Tokyo, Task force and specially Westerns such as The hanging tree , Drum beat , Cowboy , 3:10 to Yuma, Jubal , and his most known film Broken Arrow with James Stewart.

Copyright 1958. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at sixty neighborhoods: 3 September 1958. U.K. release: 14 December 1958. Australian release: 4 December 1958. 7,477 feet. 83 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Alan Ladd plays a Dutchman (!) who wants to rob a mine in Prescott, Arizona. He hires Ernest Borgnine as his gunslinger. But Ernest falls in love with an attractive Mexican girl, Katy Jurado.COMMENT: Well below what you would expect of a Daves western, especially as it was made so close to "Three Ten to Yuma" and "The Last Wagon". Daves claims that when he was making the movie, neither he nor any of the players or technicians were aware that the script was a re-hash of "Asphalt Jungle" with a number of extremely odd changes, including an astonishing finish in which the Sam Jaffe character rides off into the sunset with the Marilyn Monroe character. It's hard to completely credit Daves' claim, because he seems to have done his best in certain scenes to out-Huston Huston. The extraordinary opening, for instance, featuring a fight among six convicts who are chained together, and the shot of Borgnine, an embittered prisoner, stumbling out of the opaque blackness of solitary into the blinding daylight. Of course, Alan Ladd also exerted some influence on the movie, insisting on the hiring of the noted film noir cameraman, John Seitz, who has certainly contrived some striking effects. Nonetheless, despite some fine slices of action, including the mine robbery and the climactic (but infuriatingly brief) gunfight, this is a patchy film.

It's Delmer Daves' next to last western and it shows ;even if Ladd and Borgnine make a good pairing,we begin to feel in "badlanders " what will come next;the scenes between Borgnine and the always reliable Katy Jurado (the hooker with a big heart) are full of finer feelings and Daves seems more interested in filming them than the -suspenseful,however-sequences in the mine ;after "the hanging tree" ,an ultimate western which also contains elements of melodrama ,all his career will consist of pure melodramatic stuff ("Parish" and "Susan Slade " are good examples,and quite entertaining and they were heralded by "kings go forth" )"badlanders "holds his movie balanced ,particularly in the scene when the Mexicans intervene in favor of the two heroes ;it seems that Ladd's love affair was botched intentionally or else the western buffs would have been disappointed;you can prefer,nevertheless, works such as "broken arrow" "3:10 to Yuma" or "the last wagon".

A notable aspect of this western, particularly when seen in a good PAL version, is that the location photography is extremely well lit and balanced with good use of minimal lighting and the use of pincushion rather than Bush & Lomb lenses in the location photography (it is possible to see the difference). This shows up well in the end sequences. However the studio work is lit using the standard studio methods and shows little of the location cameraman's skill.The colour is well balanced and the sound is okay, not as good as some. At this tiem Cimemascope was losing its exclusivity and so was being used more and more in lower budget westerns. As far as Alan Ladd being in the doldrums, he was working solidly but appeared to be working at his best in British productions where they appeared to provide him with enough challengingly good actors to keep him ocuppied. A good afternoon film, enjoyable.