The Brass Legend

Just like so many of noir’s greatest anti-heroes, Sheriff Wade Addams (Hugh O’Brian) appears silently tormented by moral confusion in Gerd Oswald’s The Brass Legend. Already conflicted between his dedication to his job and his love for Linda Gipson (Nancy Gates), the brooding sheriff’s inner tumult is stretched to the limit by the return of Tris Hatten (an understated Raymond Burr), the town’s most wanted criminal who had been hiding out with his on-and-off girlfriend Millie Street (Rebecca Welles). Addams finally arrests Hatten but feels somewhat humiliated when townsfolk learn that he was aided in apprehending Hatten by Linda’s little brother Clay (Donald MacDonald). The film’s atmosphere combines the vastness of a western with the claustrophobia of a noir, while unexpected shots — low angle, deep focus, over the shoulder of a corpse — spring up on a regular basis. Watch for a magical composition when Hatten and Millie make out inside the cabin while, through the window, Addams rides up in the moonlit distance.