In the early 1950s Allied Artists was still struggling to be free of the Poverty Row stigma attached to its old name, Monogram. This ambitious color western takes place in Canada yet is filmed on the Corriganville Ranch just outside Los Angeles. When gambler Carey (Keith Larsen) gets into a gunfight over crooked cards, he and his law-abiding brother Dick (James Craig) cross the border into Canada. They join the North-West Mounted Police and are soon dispatched on a peace mission. Still rebellious after the Little Big Horn, Sioux Chief Sitting Bull (Michael Granger) is provoking incidents with white settlers to convince the Blackfoot Chief (Morris Ankrum) to war with him against the U.S. Army. Dick offsets the damage by making friends and judging crimes fairly, but Carey helps a crooked trader steal some Blackfoot pelts, touching off a series of ambush murders. Peace is restored only after the two brothers fight it out. Perhaps the only actor pleased with the film was young Rita Moreno, who for once is not given the role of a 'native princess'. Critics disliked the hues of the budget Cinecolor process. A few noted the presence of mountains in the plains of South Saskatchewan, and Mounties that wear heavy wool uniforms and wool hats in the summer heat. Although credited as such, the noted Walter Wanger did not produce the film. AA's executive Walter Mirisch confirmed that the studio 'bought' the famous producer's name for three films, to help him restart his prestigious career after serving a brief prison sentence for shooting and wounding agent Jennings Lang. Wanger was soon collaborating with Allied Artists in earnest, an arrangement that yielded the classics Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

By Glenn Erickson