Directed by Robert Wise, this slightly above average Western drama is dripping with testosterone, though its story is more film noir- like than anything else. The plot follows Jim Garry (Robert Mitchum) as a man who finds himself in the middle of the familiar battle between a rancher and some homesteaders. With few options given the failures in his past, he ventures out to accept a job with an old friend, Tate Riling (Robert Preston).Along the way, Garry encounters his friend's opposition, John Lufton (Tom Tully), and his two daughters, Amy (Barbara Bel Geddes) and Carol (Phyllis Thaxter). Riling has riled up fellow homesteaders like Kris Barden (Walter Brennan) to deny Lufton the land he needs for grazing his cattle. However, Riling has an ulterior motive which, once Garry learns of it, causes conflict between the two old friends. Additionally, Garry has discovered a hidden division between Lufton's daughters. Frank Faylen plays Jake Pindalest, the government's representative on the Indian reservation for which Lufton's cattle is intended; he's involved with Riling as well.Garry figures out that Riling's motive for involving the homesteaders in a fight against Lufton is a front for his own selfish plans to become the wealthy middleman in Lufton's cattle sale to the government. Riling is not only using Lufton's daughter Carol, pretending to be in love with her in order to gain inside information, but he's also hired gunmen, like Garry, to ensure his plans are carried out. But Garry, even though he's tough & a skilled shot, is not a killer like the others Riling has hired, and learns that the $10,000 he's been offered is for him to be Riling's front, the middleman between Lufton's transaction with Pindalest, who's also on Riling's payroll.Garry decides he's not too enamored with the deal, nor Riling anymore, and ends up saving Lufton's life in front of his daughter Amy, who had initially mistrusted Garry. A relationship begins between Garry and Amy, which will develop into a romantic one later, thanks to Garry's change of heart and open assistance to Lufton against Riling. Garry and Riling also have a "knockdown, drag out" barroom fight, which effectively ends their friendship, though it too begins one, between Garry and Barden. Garry "throws in" with Lufton by kidnapping Pindalest to delay the government's deadline for the sale of the beef.The film ends later, predictably, with a shootout typical of such stories.

***SPOILERS*** Winging south through the open prairie rain soaked and saddle sored Jim Garry, Robert Mitchum, gets himself in the middle of a bloody conflict between cattlemen and homesteaders. This fighting is all being manipulated by Garry's friend who had hired him as a gunslinger to clean up things in the area the double-crossing Tate Riling, Robert Preston.Riling has gotten the homesteaders all fired up against cattleman John Lufton,Tom Tully, in conning them in him being on their side. Riling is actually planning to with the help of the US Government take away land that Tully uses as grazing for his some 2,500 head of cattle. Working behind the scenes with government contractor Jack Pindalest, Frank Faylen, who provides the beef for the local Indian reservation Riling plans to force Lupton to sell him his cattle at bargain basement prices, and split the profits with him, before the deadline by the US Government runs out and it has the military sizes his cattle for noncompliance!It's takes a while for Garry to realize that he's being used by Riling before throwing his lot in with Lufton in stopping his, together with Pindalest, maniacal plan from being thrown into effect. Meanwhile in covering all the bases the back stabbing and snake in the grass Riling is having an affair with Lufton's older daughter Carol, Phyllis Thaxter, in him trying to get her to turn against her father in promising Carol that what he's doing, stealing her dad's cattle, is really in her's and her father's best interest. Garry himself has since gotten romantically involved with Lufton's younger daughter Amy, Barbara Bel Geddes, after she almost shot him in her mistaking Garry for being one of Riling's gunsling hit-men.***SPOILERS*** Garry with the help of one of Riling's disgruntled former homesteaders supporters Kris Barden, Walter Brennan, who's son Fred, George Cooper, was killed in one of Riling's raids on Lufton's cattle plans to put to an end to both Riling and Pindalest's devious plan in a violent shoo-out in Braden's cabin at the conclusion of the movie. Garry who was previously attacked and badly wounded by one of Pindalest Indian goons by getting knifed in the chest finally gets his big chance to have it out with Riling Pindalest and their men at Barden's barricaded cabin in the woods in sub-freezing temperatures. Garry barley able to stand up from the freezing cold and the knife would he suffered, and also having a touch of pneumonia, ends it all by putting both Riling and Pindalest, together with their plans in taking over Lufton's cattle, out of commission!

Although RKO was a major studio, in the 1940s an unusually large proportion of its output was low-budget B-movies. And not just any B-movies – psychological urban horrors from the Val Lewton unit, and plenty of gritty thrillers of the type that would come to be known as film noir. There was also a brisk trade in Westerns at all the studios, and RKO was no exception, but perhaps no picture better demonstrates that the studio was practically stuck in "noir" mode than the literally dark Western Blood on the Moon.Much of Blood on the Moon's bleak look is down to director of photography Nicholas Musuraca, who did the job on many of the Lewton horrors, including the seminal Cat People. Musuraca was quite capable of doing regular (and still very accomplished) cinematography – take a look at I Remember Mama, for which he received his only Oscar nomination – but his speciality was cloaking the screen in vast swathes of black. You would think this would be difficult in a Western, which ought to be full of vast empty plains and sunny skies. But Musuraca uses lighting techniques that can turn anything into a silhouette, or edges and corners into indistinct patches of darkness. He even makes clouds and buttes into foreboding black blobs. But he does not simply dim everything darker – his craft is very precise, and he is capable of throwing sharp white light where it is needed, or creating layers of grey amidst the gloom. Incidentally, while this adds immensely to the atmosphere, it is also probably part of RKO's general trend of hiding the lack of lavishness on a cheap production. After all, who needs a big town set when all you can make out is a door frame and a hitching post? Musuraca's partner in crime is director Robert Wise, another graduate of the Lewton unit. Wise adds to the atmosphere by composing tightly framed shots with bits of scenery and foreground clutter obscuring chunks of the screen. And look at how much of the movement is in depth rather than across the screen. Often characters are moving straight towards us, virtually staring into the lens, and this adds to the aura of menace. Just like in a well-made film noir (as well as those Val Lewton horrors) the overall impression is of a surreal nightmare world from which there is no escape. That is quite an achievement in a Western.Wise was also an expert at handling the pacing of his pictures, here shooting intense and nasty action sequences, spaced out by moody and measured dialogue scenes. This latter actually gives room for some nice acting performances. Robert Mitchum – a man who made an art form out of laconic moodiness – is perfect for those quieter moments. Like Humphrey Bogart, he was at first mistaken for a supporting player, but film noir gave him a niche as a leading man. Barbara Bel Geddes seems really cut out as Mitchum's tomboyish love interest. Active and assertive parts like the one she has here did not come up often for women in this era, and she gives it her all. Best of the bunch though is Walter Brennan, who looks and sounds like the typical crusty old man, and as such played a part in dozens of Westerns in his time. But under his character actor exterior he could emote beautifully, and in Blood on the Moon you really believe his mourning for his son.What we have here isn't simply a case of Wise and Musurasca giving a mischievous murky makeover to a good ol' cowboy flick. It seems the project was in noir territory right from the outset. Lillie Hayward, who I don't recall seeing credited anywhere else, but seems to have done a top job, has really just given us a gritty PI thriller out West. Mitchum is not so much the iconic drifter and more a grudgingly moral gun for hire. There is little distinction between the cowpunchers and the homesteaders (although in any case these two groups tended to be fairly interchangeable as villains and heroes from one Western to another – a bit like the North and South in Civil War movies). And interestingly this is one of the few pictures of this time to feature bona fide cowgirls, who shoot, talk and ride like the men. Parasols and petticoats are out of the question in this Western.Leaving aside all social context and genre subversion, the most important question is surely, is it actually any good? The answer is yes. Blood on the Moon does what any decently made B-flick ought to do – it is neither deep, moving or intelligent, but it gives a quick and reliable round of entertainment.

I never heard of this film til it played as part of a Robert Mitchum retrospective at the National Film Theatre in London. Almost 60 years on the cast list looked tasty to say the least with seven names - in addition to top-billed Mitchum - in the public domain; Charles McGraw, not long off The Killers, Barbara Bel Geddes, long before Dallas and arguably still better known as the daughter of Theatre Set Designer Norman, Walter Brennan, who needed no introduction, Frank Faylen, the sadistic male nurse in The Lost Weekend and the much nicer small-town mensch in It's A Wonderful Life, Robert Preston still a decade away from Harold Hill in The Music Man with Tom Tully and Phyllis Thaxter making up the numbers. Alas, most of them were wasting their time. I looked in vain for any 'signature' scenes given that it was Robert Wise on bullhorn. By this time he'd made around a half dozen films and had still to find a style. The story is our old friend the range war and Mitchum must have thought it was barely a cut above the Hopalong Cassidy oaters on which he'd cut his teeth. There are no new twists - if you don't count the unbelievable scene when Mitchum accuses Preston of sleeping with Thaxter to gain information about her father's plans to move his cattle. This is perfectly true but how did Mitchum KNOW? We've seen or heard nothing to indicate how he discovered it. On balance not a lot to be said for this.