Although clearly low-budget, Allied Artists lavished both Cinemascope and DeLuxe color on this somewhat verbose Western that borrowed plot number five from the catalogue of B-Western writing: the discovery by the villain of oil (gold, water, borax, et. al) on the property belonging to a lowly Indian (settler, nester, homesteader, etc.). Happily, this time the old wheeze is acted by a cast of competent veterans who had done this sort of thing many times before, but rarely better. As always, Joel McCrea makes a believable frontiersman, although he clearly isn't hailing from Oklahoma. Barbara Hale is her competent self as the inevitable heroine, and Brad Dexter makes a credible villain, whose motives are clearly drawn. But the real joy of the film remains its supporting cast: Verna Felton as Ms. Hale's feisty mother; Esther Dale as the no-nonsense boarding-house proprietress; and the townspeople, who, for once, are depicted as mostly caring individuals trying to make the best of a bad situation. Among them, surprisingly, is I. Stanford Jolley, usually the blackest of blackguards, but here portraying a sympathetic storekeeper. On the debit side, the Native Americans are white actors with much pancake makeup -- science fiction favorite Gloria Talbott is stunning nonetheless -- and the denouement seems strangely hurried.