Pun Salad

Why yes, I did watch two 1953 movies in a row. Good catch. This one's a Jimmy Stewart western. It was Oscar-nominated for "Best Writing, Story and Screenplay". I see at IMDB that one of the writers, Sam Rolfe, went on to write a couple Star Trek episodes (one TNG, one DS9).

Jimmy Stewart plays the hero, Howard Kemp. Howard's very flawed. (It's a modern western.) For initially obscure reasons, he's obsessed with capturing bad guy Ben Vandergroat, played by Robert Ryan. Circumstances force him to take on a couple partners, a grizzled and unlucky prospector, and a brash semi-psychotic ex-soldier. And when they finally catch up to Vandergroat, it turns out he has a lovely travelling companion, Lina, played by Janet Leigh. That makes five people, an unwieldy bunch. They encounter the usual obstacles, mainly Indians. (It turns out the ex-soldier behaved badly with a young tribal woman.)

But in addition, Vandergroat turns out to be adept at finding the weak spots in everyone's character, and leveraging them into dysfunctional behavior. (Everyone's pretty good, but Robert Ryan is very good. He really seems to be having a good time with Vandergroat's character.)