Originally shot in 3D, the RKO Western Devil's Canyon (1953), starring Dale Robertson and Virginia Mayo, was available for many years only in a black-and-white print but finally appeared in the late 1980s in its original color.

The story is set at the Arizona Territorial Prison, where some 500 male inmates grow ever more tense after female outlaw Abby Nixon (Mayo) is also imprisoned there. Ex-marshal Billy Reynolds (Robertson), incarcerated after killing two men in self-defense, learns that Jessie Gorman (Stephen McNally), the murderous brother of the two men he killed, is also a convict.

Matters come to a head when Abby helps Jessie plan an escape at the same time she's falling in love with Billy. The climactic escape has Billy facing down the other convicts with a Gatling gun.

Robertson was a natural at playing Western types who heeded the advice of fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers, who once told him he should never take an acting class. Robertson was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1983. Mayo, a city girl born in St. Louis, also made her share of Westerns including Along the Great Divide (1951), The Big Land (1957) and Fort Dobbs (1958).

Producer: Edmund Grainger
Director: Alfred Werker
Screenplay: Frederick Hazlitt Brennan, Harry Essex, from story by Bennett Cohen and Norton S. Parker
Cinematography: Nicholas Musuraca
Art Direction: Albert S. D'Agostino, Jack Okey
Original Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof
Editing: Gene Palmer
Costume Design: Michael Woulfe Principal Cast: Virginia Mayo (Abby Nixon), Dale Robertson (Billy Reynolds), Stephen McNally (Jessie Gorman), Arthur Hunnicutt (Frank Taggert), Robert Keith (Warden Steve Morgan), Jay C. Flippen (Capt. Wells).
C-92m. Closed captioning.

by Roger Fristoe