#silver lode

Alan Hale Jr. 1921-90

Strangers ride into town on the fourth of July to arrest a man on his wedding day. The man must convince the town of his innocence or face death.

1954 is one of the tipping point years where colour became more standard which is fortunate for this film as it’s the brightness that makes the action more oppressive and tense. In addition, the contrast in colours for the costumes marks the characters by personality, the martial wearing dull browns and Ballard in lighter blues.

There are only a few women and they stick very strictly to stereotypes, though it’s still an increase to have three women who are relevant to the story and the seductress isn’t even portrayed as evil. The villain wasn’t terribly strong and his henchmen were essentially nameless cannon fodder.

Some discussion about the kinds of justice enhances the subtext, including elements of how the law can be corrupted or perverted. The judge is a good example of how following the letter of the law but not the spirit is deadly to some. It was also significant that the law is portrayed as tenuous to the time since the town was so easily isolated.

Despite the build up, it almost didn’t make much difference whether the protagonist was really guilty or not and there had been sufficient time to invent more complex and satisfying explanations like how the entire ordeal may be a con between the arresting men and accused to trick the town into paying out to save him, hence not going through with the wedding at the beginning.