This would-be rollicking adventure - one of a slew of colourful, handsomely mounted westerns made by 20th Century-Fox during the 1960s - suffers from chronic miscasting. All-time good guys James Stewart and Dean Martin play outlaw brothers who hold a peculiarly accented Raquel Welch hostage after she loses her husband in a botched bank raid. The actual good guy, surprisingly, is George Kennedy, but he's no match for these particular baddies. The uneven mixture of contemporary violence and traditional western values is uncomfortably directed by Andrew V McLaglen, whose father, Victor, appeared in many of the best of the westerns directed by the great John Ford (Ford's masterly touch would not go amiss here). It's a mess, then, but not unwatchable.

Posing as a hangman, Mace Bishop arrives in town with the intention of freeing a gang of outlaws, including his brother, from the gallows. Mace urges his younger brother to give up crime. The sheriff chases the brothers to Mexico. They join forces, however, against a group of Mexican bandits.