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Kip Davis (Joel McCrea), Charlie Burns (Zachary Scott) and Lee Price (Douglas Kennedy) are best friends and partners in the Three-Bell Ranch, but the Civil War breaks out and their home is destroyed by Union raiders led by Luke Cottrell. Kip tracks down Cottrell in the local saloon and beats him. It won't be their last meeting.

But with the Three-Bell ranch gone, the partners split up. Lee joins the Confederate army. At the urging of saloon singer Rouge de Lisle (Alexis Smith), Kip becomes a gunrunner and Charlie joins him in the gun-running business.

Kip just wants to get enough money to restart the Three-Bell Ranch, however Charlie is more interested in the money than the ranch. Meanwhile,Lee winds up being more interested in Deborah Miller (Dorothy Malone) - the girl Kip planned to marry - than a renewed partnership with his two friends.

Turns out the close bond between the Three-Bell partners is going to be severely tested, during the war and after.

A decent Joel McCrea western highlighting the turbulence that war can cause by splitting three friends apart, but it's the rousing action scenes that drives this fast-paced western splashed in Technicolor. Great stunts, horse riding and gun smoke! Plus you get two hotties Alexis Smith and Dorothy Malone. The performances are great too, especially from McCrea who is an honourable character, something he would continue to play later in his career. Zachary Scott does what it's expected, and sneers in bad guy fashion. So does Victor Jory. It's a well- directed colourful western, but that's what you expect from the director of the superb Coroner's Creek!

This movie is filled with every cliche you can think of, and absolutely none of them work. The plot is predictable and the characters are not interesting, but boring. The acting is pretty bad, even by Joel McCrea. Even western fans should stay away from this one.

Joel McCrea, Douglas Kennedy, and Zachary Scott are partners in the Three Bell Ranch in Texas as the Civil War starts. When war does come it splits the partners up. The ranch is raided by Victor Jory and his cutthroats and the partners are wiped out. Kennedy opts for enlisting in the Confederate Army. McCrea and Scott decide to go into gunrunning to make enough money to re-stock the ranch. McCrea makes enough, but Scott likes the profits and he wants to keep on gunrunning.

As you can see the three partners all have different agendas. In fact everyone in this movie is working on his own agenda. The female leads Alexis Smith and Dorothy Malone have a hankering for McCrea. Victor Jory rides for the Union the Confederates and for himself. Bob Steele who's a slimy sort that Scott recruits in the gunrunning business has his own plans.

Believe it or not it all jells into a very nice plot and is good entertainment. Joel McCrea was his usual stalwart hero as was Douglas Kennedy. Zachary Scott was no better than he had to be on any occasion.

It's a good western and I wish it was shown more often.

They stick together and separate occasionally, taking opposite stands, sometimes with the confederates and sometimes with the unionists, but in spite of wide gulfs of differences they always end up together again, Joel McCrea, Zachary Scott and Douglas Kennedy, they are bound together by a ranch which they share called "Three Bells", and that's why they attach small bells to their spurs to make them tinkle more distinctly wherever they go. Two dames are also involved, the lovely and adorable Dorothy Malone, who is marrying Joel McCrea, and Alexis Smith as a saloon entertainer, singing occasionally and sticking her fingers into their business occasionally. She is the best acting performance here, with great nuances making her character the most intriguing, occasionally (when no one sees it) wiping off a tear or two. There is a great villain also, Victor Jory at his most unpleasant, a thoroughly vicious sadist who likes to burn ranches, kill people and steal any kind of loot. The frame of the drama is the civil war and how it affects Texas, being torn apart by unionists and confederates and ultimately in the hands of the Texas Rangers, and the political shifts of the drama add to its interest. Joel McCrea never gets his Dorothy Malone as another gets her instead, but he finds someone else, or perhaps she is the one who finds him, after having looked for him throughout the film.

Joel McCrea, Zachary Scott, and Douglas Kennedy were three friends who tried to ranch together, and dorothy Malone was the good girl they all loved. Then came the Civil War, and now in its closing days, their ranch is destroyed, so they turn to arms smuggling. But cracks show in their friendship, and when the War ends, will it mean the start of their battle?

Warner Brothers had been putting Erroll Flynn in handsome westerns for some time, and this looks like it was intended as another. It's handsome, engaging, has a fine cast, including Alan Hale as a politician, Alexis Smith as the bad girl with a heart of gold, and Bob Steele as the mean henchman. But despite Karl Freund's typically fine camerawork, it all seems like a b western writ large. Perhaps it's because the villain of the piece is Victor Jory as Quantrell, but they were afraid of a lawsuit, so they called his 'Cotrell'. There are no obvious errors, just a feeling it has too many moving parts that never quite mesh.