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Unfortunately, this was the only Western directed by the talented Mark Robson. It has an excellent, tight screenplay by Daniel Mainwaring (aka Geoffrey Homes) and Hugo Butler, from a story by Peter Viertel. Most surprisingly it boasts unusual violence for the Genre, thus making ROUGHSHOD hold up the test of time so well. Uniformly outstanding performances by a very young and luminous Gloria Grahame, Claude Jarman Jr, Myrna Dell, John Ireland and Jeff Donnell. Character actors James Bell, Jeff Corey and Sara Haden were very good in small roles and it must be said that the usually dull leading man Robert Sterling here proved he could act.

It has impeccable photography by Joe Biroc, an evocative score by the underrated Roy Webb and remarkable women costumes by Renie. Unfortunately, as with so many RKO Titles, WarnerVideo never released it on VHS and the first DVD Edition (Made on order) came out as late as January 2016!. Fans of Westerns should not miss ROUGHSHOD, unavailabilty pushed it into oblivion but definitely is worth of a reappraisal.