Colorado Territory

A classic Western, this bleak remake of Walsh's own High Sierra substitutes McCrea's weary desperation for Bogart's laconic interpretation of the bandit who wants to go straight but signs up for 'just one more job'. Cinematographer Sid Hickox piles on the black to give it the look of a film noir, and writer John Twist creates a fitting atmosphere of doom around McCrea and Mayo, but it is Walsh's direction which brings this darkly romantic Western to life. The bravura treatment of landscape is particularly impressive, especially in the final sequence where his ant-sized humans meet their malevolent destiny amid barren mountains.