In this splendid 20th Century-Fox CinemaScope western, a magnificently grizzled Spencer Tracy stars in the role he was born to play - King Lear. Even though the daughters have become sons, this is the (uncredited) westernisation of Shakespeare's tragedy about the royal patriarch and his disparate family. It's also a re-make of House of Strangers, the Joseph L Mankiewicz crime drama that was also re-made in the big-top setting of The Big Show. Still, despite the claims for Akira Kurosawa's Ran, this is the definitive screen version of the Bard's celebrated work, and the western setting provides a dimension of grandeur: it's no accident, surely, that this was one of the first subjects used to show off the then new CinemaScope process.

Tensions erupt within an Arizona cattle baron's household when his three sons vie for control of the ranch.