The second is the young sheriff dealing with Bogardis. Then on the way into town for a big celebration the elderly Doctor is being given, he is murdered. They meet the McGaffey brothers, while out doing shooting practice, played by Lee Van Cleef and Peter Baldwin. The major part of the film shows us the young man unlearning misassumptions under Fonda's tutelage. There is also a crusty old doctor, John Mcintire, who does not approve of Hickman for reasons he will not give a girl in love with Perkins, pretty Mary Webster, and a town bully, Bart Bogardis, powerfully portrayed by Neville Brand, who the young sheriff knows he will someday have to challenge. He is kind to the boy, and assures her he does not mind spending some time with him. Her husband was an educated and fine man but the townsfolk do not deal with her socially. He finds a room in the meanwhile with Betsy Palmer and her boy, who is half-Indian. He wants to be a lawman and a good one.and Hickman sees himself in the boy and agrees, while he is waiting for his money. And when he learns Hickman has been a long-time sheriff, against advice he asks him for lessons.
The young temporary sheriff, Anthony Perkins, shares the attitude of contempt until he starts to observe the man. He is a bounty hunter, and no one asks his side of the tale. Everyone in town is doing just that when Morg Hickman, played ably by laconic Henry Fonda, rides into town with a dead man over his packhorse's saddle.
It is a decently-assembled dramatic western, whose theme is "do no run away from what you want the most". What they had in mind is that it dealt with prejudices expressed openly that elsewhere, in adventures set in the West, were mostly the subjects of hints. This is a western that its makers claimed was "adult", implying many others were not.
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