A Man Alone

A lone gunslinger stranded in the desert (Milland) comes upon the corpse-strewn wreck of a stagecoach. With the finger of suspicion firmly pointed at him, he then holes up in town to play a lone hand (more or less, since he is befriended by sheriff's daughter Mary Murphy) against the corrupt citizen (Burr) using him as a cover-up for nefarious activities. At the film's heart is a persuasive though clumsily inserted consideration of the nature of corruption, occasioned when Ward Bond's sheriff, hitherto in Burr's pay, does some soul-searching on finally declaring himself on the side of the angels. Milland's direction (his debut) is sometimes a little too ponderously deliberate, but - like the performances - eminently watchable.