La Fille du désert

While there may be a few cracks in this movie, overall it is a magnificent work. Some of it could have been shot by Ansel Adams. Few of the situations are forced and the script flows without some of the interruptions of irrationality noted in many westerns. The acting is universally excellent and production values are superb,something characteristic of Warner Bros. About the only complaint one may have about the cast is that Virginia Mayo's beauty is not as evident as it should be, for she is, in my opinion, one of the GREAT beauties to ever grace the screen. The twists and turns in this movie keep you in suspense. If you are a fan of the westerns, this one should allow you to exit the theater "justified".

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

Colorado Territory is directed by Raoul Walsh and adapted to screenplay by Edmund H. North and John Twist from the novel "High Sierra" written by W.R. Burnett. It stars Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Dorothy Malone and Henry Hull. Music is by David Buttolph and cinematography by Sidney Hickox.

Raoul Walsh remakes his own High Sierra from 1941 but supplants it into a Western genre setting - with tremendous results.

McCrea plays outlaw Wes McQueen who springs from prison and vows to go straight, but with a price on his head he is coerced into one last railroad robbery. If he can escape the law then he can make a go of it as a new man, with a new name, and comforted by a new found love of a good woman, Colorado Carson (Mayo). Can he escape the law and those who would sell him out for money?

A remake of a classic film noir, Colorado Territory is itself classic film noir. Whilst not reaching the dizzying star heights of Bogart's 41 version, this is a film of great strengths. Thematically it's noir gold dust, the great Walsh not pandering to anyone and ensuring the dark edges of Burnett's novel play out on screen - including the shattering finale.

The photography is grade "A", both in chiaroscuro textures and sumptuous location framings. Cast can't be faulted either, McCrea a genuine horseman is firmly at home in a Western setting, Mayo and Malone positively light and sex up the screen, while classy performer Hull lends weighty support.

High end Western staples are adhered to, with robbery actions, fights, stunts, villainous betrayals and back stabbers, these marry up to the noirish cement of a man unable to escape his fate, his past weighing heavy on his shoulders, all ensuring there's constantly a doom laden feel permeating the story.

Rarely mentioned when talk turns to film noir Westerns, but it should be since it's one of the best. 9/10

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.

Just one, before our aging outlaw's final retirement and start of a new life.

But there are complications--crafty colleagues, traitor accomplices and--women.

One woman turns out to be helpful, the other merely selfish. But that's just the start of our antihero's problems.

It's a Raoul Walsh film, and by golly, if any director knew how to make a movie move, it's Walsh. Made the same year as his classic, "White Heat," this western also ends with an "On Top o' the World" finale.

Joel McCrea is an intriguing actor. A sort of neutral entity that could be cast in any kind of role and come off looking and sounding natural and acceptable. No one ever especially went to see, nor stayed away from a picture because of him. He was just there, always doing a dependable job. And what an array of fine directors used him.

Likewise, Virginia Mayo is a solid pro, and this role allows her more opportunity than merely being decorative. Her character work is most convincing.

Taking what could have been a routine script, Walsh turns it into a picture that, once one starts watching, one cannot stop till the end. It moves, surprises and stimulates.

Some directors just have it, and Walsh is clearly strutting his stuff in "Colorado Territory."