This western is made memorable by the collaboration between John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn. Wayne reprises his Oscar-winning role in True Grit and Hepburn returns to the same kind of Bible-bashing spinster she portrayed in The African Queen, playing the missionary who tames the truculence of one-eyed Wayne as they search for her father's killers. The performances are wonderful, but the film relies too much on its elderly leads and is flawed by Stuart Millar's sluggish direction. It remains eminently watchable, but ultimately looks more like a cash-in on our sympathies as we watch great stars going through their paces.

After a band of drunken thugs overruns a small Indian Nation town, killing Reverend Goodnight and raping the women folk, Eula Goodnight enlists the aid of US Marshal Cogburn to hunt them down and bring her father's killers to justice.