Raton Pass

“How many times have I told you to speak English?” says cold-blooded Ann Challon (Patricia Neal) to the Mexican maid while plotting to destroy her husband in Edwin Marin’s Raton Pass. Having arrived in town only a short time ago and married the kindhearted Marc Challon (Dennis Morgan) in order to secure access to half of his family’s vast cattle ranches, Ann has already moved on to her next seduction target, an even richer banker (Scott Forbes) who teams up with her to buy the Challon land and hire violent outlaw Cy Van Cleave (the wonderfully slimy Steve Cochran) as foreman to eject all the homesteaders when he’s not beating up women and shooting dogs. Dorothy Hart plays Ann’s opposite, Lena Casamajor, the sweet niece of a homesteader who has always loved Marc from afar. As Ann’s greed soars and Cy’s violence intensifies, the conflict takes on fatal dimensions; indeed, almost everyone will end up either dead or wounded. Even with her obvious discomfort in church early in the film, Neal is gloriously understated as the femme fatale (when she’s caught making out with the banker, her reaction is cool-headed and practical); in contrast, her gentle husband Marc leads the locals in song at his own wedding.