This may be a mite saddle-weary (considering it's yet another variation on Rio Bravo), but as John Wayne's last film with director Howard Hawks it has a wonderful sense of western occasion, together with a sardonic humour that lights up a listless story. Jorge Rivero and Bob's son, Chris Mitchum, play the Confederate looters snatching Union gold, and Wayne is the colonel trying to find the traitor who's feeding information to the robbers. Meanwhile, wild-eyed Jack Elam looks askance at the whole business. It's leisurely, but the characters and circumstance make a real impression.

After the Civil War, a former Union colonel searches for the two traitors whose perfidy led to the loss of a close friend.