Gregory Peck plays an outlaw with a small gang of robbers who ride to and fro, Stealing from every town and then making their way onto the next.
But they run into a bit of trouble when they're assaulted by a small patrol of the American Army.
Out of desperation they flee into an arid desert environment. Water is scarce and the Sun is ever present.
For several days they track across this unbearable land until they happened upon the ghost town of Yellow-sky.
Where they would have died if not for the assistance of Anny Baxter. She's a strange local in the area who for some reason tells them where a water source is so that they can live. It's a horrible mistake on her part.
Now Baxter has no idea who any of these people are. They could be weary Travelers who mistakenly went through an arid desert or they could be what they actually are.
A group of robbers and deadbeats looking to steal anything that isn't nailed down.
Not only does she help them but she doesn't even take their guns away.
And within less than a single day you've already got Gregory Peck's character hitting on her and causing a general annoyance.
His character ends up molesting her at one point. And we're talking proper molestation not this half-assed, he goes in for a kiss she pulls away but secretly wants it and they both give into the desires. No this is Gregory Peck's character tackling the girl down and planting himself on top of her.
And I'm not saying you can't do a weird romance between the two main leads.
Of course you're going to have a romance between them in the style of film.
But for god sakes man give me some reason to root for our main character.
As it is I was rooting more for Richard Widmark the whole time and he supposed to be the out-and-out antagonist of the movie.
Because he just wants to steal from these people and move on. but I'm just thinking about Gregory's character and how he's a Despicable piece of crap half the time. Who pretends to be a morally better person.
At least I know where I stand with Richard Widmark's dude.
Anyways the plots broken up between two main events.*
One is our gang of Thieves trying to discover the secret location of a gold and the other half most of the gang having ''interest'' in Baxter. . And I wish we would have spent a bit more time with the gold plot. There's this whole thing involving a group of Native Americans that's never really brought up again.
There's a huge group of them that ended up helping out Baxter and her grandfather get this gold (or at least protect said gold).
But then they just disappear from the movie and they never show up again.
How cool would it have been if the Thieves stole the gold and then Baxter and her grandfather had to hunt these idiots down with the help of their indigenous comrades.
Now that would have been a freaking cool movie.
Just a bunch of deadbeats getting slaughtered for their greedy endeavours.
Anyways despite my problem with Gregory packs romance plot the film itself is fairly decent.
It's written okay, the acting is pretty solid, the cinematography surprisingly good and the film's able to keep up a fairly decent pace despite not having any music cues.
That's pretty impressive for a western movie.
What western doesn't have good music?
Well the answer is this one.
They're practically none.
*I would have been cool to have more wandering aimlessly through the desert scenes.
Just a group of Bandits slowly breaking down and turning on each other as their resources start to limit and all of their luxuries become pointless.
The thousands of dollars they stole can't even afford them a glass of water and the one really dumb man who purposely filled his canteen with whiskey is doubly screwed.
When a Desperado in the desert can't trade a canteen of whiskey for a single shot of water you know you've truly hit rock bottom.
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