Burt Lancaster Saddles Up for the First Time and Seems Home on the Range in This Underrated Western. It's Got Everything a Thinker's Western Could Have. A Detailed "Adult" Script When the "Adult" Western was Just Being Born and Would Flourish with Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher.

This One Feels Different. With a Voice Over Narration Uncommon in the Genre, it Lays Out Details About Cattle Ranching and Roundups that are Interesting and Add Flavor to the Proceedings. The Baby Out of Wedlock Story (that is the vengeance of the title) Must have had the Production Code Squirming, is Unique for the Time and Almost Unheard of in Westerns.

It's Got a Good Cast, a Prolific Director, an MGM Budget, Color, Wide Open Spaces, Gritty Violence, and a Crackling Mature Mixture of Morality and Money Grubbing. Robert Walker is as Slimy as They Come as the Spoiled and Evil Son, and John Ireland and Hugh O'Brian as Dim-Witted Thugs Using Family Ties to Justify Their Lust for Violence.

As In Most Westerns the Females are Peripheral to the Story Even Though They are Central to the Motivations of the Hard Living Men. Overall, this is an Offbeat Film that Seems to have Elevated Itself Spontaneously as the Unusual Elements Rose to the Forefront and Made This a Unique Entry in the Usually Stodgy Western Formula.

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