La fille du désert

Colorado Territory is undoubtedly one of the best films directed by Raoul Walsh.In fact it's sort of a remake of a film Walsh directed 10 years before this one – High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino.

Colorado Territory's story revolves around a very sympathetic outlaw Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea) who is finally caught and put in jail but obviously not for a very long time, cause his former companions devise a plan to rob the train and are most certainly in need of him to be able to pull it off successfully. So they help him to escape. After Wes succeeds in doing so he finds a refuge in a distant abandoned village in the mountains where he meets his partners together with a spirited and beautiful woman Colorado (Virginia Mayo) who ends up falling in love with him not knowing that his heart already belongs to another very different woman Julie Ann (Dorothy Malone) who in her turn, doesn't know about Wes McQueen being one of the most sought after outlaws in the west. The question now is not who stays with the girl, but who stays with the guy in the most fateful and poignant film's ending. 8/10

Finally was able to view this semi-famous film (due mainly, I suspect, because of the Raoul Walsh/remake of HIGH SIERRA connection). Is it 'better' than HIGH SIERRA? A question, IMO, that doesn't need to be asked, much less answered. Both are pretty riveting pieces of entertainment for their respective genres (gangster & western). I'll admit I had some innocent fun in comparing the similarities of both. The thing I was struck by was the darker, more devious Malone character in the role Joan Leslie had in HIGH SIERRA and also feeling that maybe Joel McCrea was miscast; his screen persona is the 'stalwart and true' type and not an out and out bandit. His only chance to fit into a criminal role would be when it's 'forced' on him and I don't recall that being the case in this one. But why quibble? Here we have the superior art direction and fast action (mostly in the second half, true) typical of WB at it's late 40's/early 50's peak. This sort of thing makes up for a lot of any kind of casting/scripting deficiencies in my book. And what an under-rated actress is Virginia Mayo! She can be fiery one moment and then quiet and subtle the next. Very desirable in this one. I mostly prefer my westerns in good color, but think perhaps this one was pessimistic and dark enough to warrant B&W without decreasing the entertainment value (as in Walsh's PURSUED).

This is as superb western by a director who knows his stuff. Raoul Walsh hasn't received the credit he deserves and this film is all but forgotten. It doesn't have any big stars or overacting, agreed, and perhaps people are looking for Oscar material rather than a great film. It's their loss. The film covers much territory (no pun intended) but certainly not too much and the many surprises work quite well. The characters' motives unravel as the film progresses, the way they should work. There aren't any easy answers here and the clichés are nowhere to be found, unlike so many by-the-numbers westerns. This is an action film from the beginning and keeps things going until the very end. It should be much better known.

Curtis Stotlar

The commenters who called this "Western noir" are on the money. Just about everyone in this movie is a ratlike scheming double- or triple-crosser. Bad guys suffer fates not noticeably worse than the handful of schmo's who are honest (mostly in the relative, honor-among-thieves sense). It's all bleak for the ones who don't get out alive and also for the ones who do.

The one aspect of this movie that may have lost its punch for 21st century viewers is the script's banal dialogue for the two key women characters. Virginia Mayo in particular is better than her lines and her costume, which is fashioned entirely from clichés about wanton women who aren't 100 percent Anglo. But the story arc treats the women just differently enough from the "classic" Western that it held my interest.

The cast, top to bottom, is excellent. Joel McCrea does that thing he does so well *especially* well here. I'd like to see Peter Sarsgaard reprise a McCrea role some day, in either a Western or a Sturges classic.

Outlaw Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea) gets sprung from a Missouri jail on the day before he is to be transported to Leavenworth by his old gang who need him for a big train robbery somewhere out in the Colorado Territory. The characters couldn't be more different. McCrae plays the part of an outlaw struggling with his own moral scruples while his partners Duke (James Mitchell) and Reno (John Archer) compete to see who the meanest one is. The presence of Virginia Mayo in this group doesn't make a lot of sense, but her part increases as the film moves along. One of the film's best plot lines is the jealousy that comes to the surface of Reno's character as Mayo's Colorado Carson is clearly taken with the cool McQueen played by McCrae. On the other side of the law is a ruthless and relentless US Marshall played by Morris Ankrum who leads an impressively sized posse out to catch up with and either shoot or hang McQueen. The film zeroes in on treachery and deceit at every opportunity. Dorothy Malone's character is especially memorable.