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Average western with advantage of good cast. Don Murray is okay in the lead, he never really had that elusive something to be a great movie star but is a fine actor but a more magnetic actor, Robert Mitchum or Burt Lancaster for example would have raised the film up a notch. The supporting cast is full of familiar faces that all provide excellent work, the real standout is Lee Remick who offers up a delicately shaded performance of a girl whose life has been full of bad breaks and hard luck. It a shame her part is relatively small since she's the most compelling character and actor in the film. The color and cinematography are also noteworthy. Not a bad movie just not great.

These Thousand Hills casts Don Murray as a young cowboy who arrives in Montana broke but with an idea. Rather than have cattle feed on the open range in winter left to the elements, he wants to grow and store hay for winter feed. In order to do this he romances two women, banker's niece Patricia Owens and saloon girl Lee Remick. Murray's both a hard worker and a fast worker.

This film highlights a growing trend in the Fifties toward adult westerns. They wouldn't yet show it on television, but that Lee Remick is a prostitute is not left to any imagination. In fact even though Remick gave Murray the seed money for his ranch, Murray then objects to pal Stuart Whitman marrying one in Remick's friend Jean Willes.

And Murray's attentions to Remick among other things have made him a bad enemy in saloon owner Richard Egan. Basically you have all the ingredients of the story of These Thousand Hills.

The film really belongs to both Murray and Lee Remick who gives quite a portrayal of a battered woman, again most unusual for any picture in the Fifties let alone a western.

As entertainment the film still holds up well today, but I'd keep it from the littlest ones.

Lat Evans (Don Murray) is an ambitious lonesome cowboy who is figuring on hanging around for a while in Fort Brock, Montana… He is a good name back home… He is out to make it mean something here… He saves some money and wants to buy a ranch… So he went to the bank to see about making a loan… But Marshal Conrad (Albert Dekker) can't afford to back gamblers… For him, it's too much of a risk… He advises Lat to get himself some security—a piece of land, a deed, something to put up—then they'll talk about a loan…

But Callie (Lee Remick), the dance hall girl, who is doing it to keep him with her, gave him her savings—with the promise to pay it back— to buy the ranch he wants…

Meantime another girl appears, the pretty Joyce (Patricia Owens)… She's the niece of the banker… Tidy, educated, she has been to college and all that… Of course Lat owes his start to Callie but he got to finish by himself… What he wants is a starched wife and a starched home and a starched reputation and Callie is spoiling his chances of getting it…

Murray is fine as the man with a future… He doubts if he goes in there his political chances are finished…

Lee Remick hasn't cared for anybody in such a long time… She's honest enough to say she's not worth risking anything for…

Richard Egan is the man who breaks his word, double-crosses his friends and beats up his woman…

Filmed in CinemaScope and color, this big-scale Western is very entertaining with enough action around

I do agree with the other user's comments. While it was a treat to see the lush cinematography and beautiful landscape, two lovely redhead girls, and a behind-the-scenes look at a bygone era, this is one of those movies that leaves too much up in the air. You wonder whether Callie will be found not guilty at her trial, or whether the fistfight or Lat's seeing Callie will result in a hindrance to his professional or personal life. The film was OK as far as it went, but the filmed seemed to end halfway through.

This relatively early exercise in applied psychology by Richard Fleischer was based on a novel by A. B. Guthrie Jr in which rising young star Don Murray played an aspiring social climber with serious childhood issues who courts working girl Lee Remick before cruelly discarding her when she becomes a social embarrassment after initially making the innocent enquiry "Is she anybody's in particular?"

Murray initially naively assumes she's a nice girl since she dresses in green, but that dress has been paid for by Richard Egan, who shows what an utter heel he is by destroying a birthday cake among sundry other misdeeds.