Colorado Territory

“You’re in the canyon of death, mister.” Barely eight years had passed when director Raoul Walsh decided to remake his hugely successful High Sierra (1941) as a period western starring Joel McCrea in the Bogart role. Preserving the romantic landscapes of the earlier film, Colorado Territory replaces gangster Roy Earle with outlaw Wes McQueen (McCrea), who breaks out of jail determined to go straight but soon finds himself agreeing to one last heist for his old pal Dave Rickard (Basil Ruysdael). He also finds himself drawn to two very different women: Julie Ann Winslow (Dorothy Malone), a young pioneer whose life he saved during a stage holdup and who dreams of marrying a high-class man, and Colorado Carson (Virginia Mayo), the half-native girlfriend of McQueen’s criminal associate Reno Blake (John Archer) who has no such marital pretenses (“I was born under a chuckwagon”). Walsh injects action and excitement on moving vehicles, such as the stagecoach holdup and the elaborate train robbery, while keeping the final manhunt through the mountains, this time adding a last hurrah of female gun power.