When the film begins, Ned Bannon (Joel McCrea) is ambushed and shot. Before blacking out, he notices a very fancy gun used by the shooter. When he comes to, he's in a camp full of settlers heading west. They've treated his wounds and he's very grateful to them. However, they inexplicably are being led by some folks who are intent on leading them onto someone else's land! They know it...but convince the very gullible settlers that Bannon is either wrong or lying. So, Bannon goes to find the landowner and convince him to give him a few days...but the folks leading the settlers reject an offer to talk and simply attack! Soon it looks like a war is about to break out...when Bannon discovers one of the folks leading the settlers has that same fancy rifle!As usual, Joel McCrea is excellent--as he was in all his westerns. While never a sexy sort of leading man in the films, he was big, strong and very believable. I just wish they hadn't made the settlers THIS stupid and pig-headed! That is a big of a weakness of the film, as they are just too easily led...or misled. Still, even with this, it's a good story and worth seeing.

Joel McCrae and Virginia Mayo appeared together in the previous decade when directed by the great Raoul Walsh in the seminal Colorado Territory .The movie under review here is not as good -even close to being -as that wonderful picture but it is a sturdy B movie Western that will give genre lovers a lot of pleasure McCrae is Ned Barton , a Union army Civil war veteran who is shot and seriously wounded when stumbling across evidence of cattle rustling .He is nursed back to health by members of a wagon train moving to California.They are making for Bishop's Valley land they aim to cross without permission of its owner ,the authoritarian landowner Bishop (Barry Kelly).When the train's guide Harper (George Neise)encourages them to stay Harper fears a range war is inevitable -he is Bishop's estranged half brother and knows Bishop will not take kindly to this incursion on his land .Harper has an ulterior motive -he is in alliance with a bandit (Michael Ansara) and schemes for the two parties to kill each other and then use the bandit gang to move in.McCrae tries to act as a buffer between the two sides The movie is well shot and decently acted -especially by Leo Gordon is a rare sympathetic role as Bishop's top hand and with sharper direction would have been better .It is still an okay B Western and will please genre lovers

The final phase of Joel McCrea's career was spent at Allied Artists, the renamed Monogram Pictures, where he did a group of good B westerns. The Tall Stranger based on a Louis L'Amour novel is one of the best.McCrea spots some cattle rustling and is left for dead after being shot by one of the rustlers. He's found by members of a wagon train who nurse him back to health. But Joel's real suspicious of the leader of this train of ex-Confederates who is George Neise. They're looking to settle on land owned by Barry Kelley who is McCrea's half brother and who is estranged from McCrea over the Civil War.What Neise is looking to do is start a nice range war with Kelley and his plan is based on the fact that Kelley's a mean and hard-bitten old soul who shoots first and asks questions later. It's up to McCrea to keep things from boiling over. How successful he is, you'll have to see the film for.You won't be disappointed if you do see the film. Virginia Mayo is the woman with a small son, Phil Phillips, on the wagon train that Joel takes a hankering to. A very mean and cunning villain played by Michael Ansara also has a hankering for Mayo and he's not one to go about the usual courting procedures. Besides those already mentioned such western regulars as Ray Teal, Leo Gordon, Michael Pate, and Whit Bissell are in the cast. It's nice to see Leo Gordon in a role that doesn't call for him to be a mean psychopath. The Tall Stranger is a good fast paced western that fans of the genre and fans of Joel McCrea will definitely like.

"The Tall Stranger" is an enjoyable Cinemascope colour Western starring Joel McCrea. McCrea's work in Westerns is not as celebrated as that of John Wayne, Gary Cooper and James Stewart, but to connoisseurs, he is one of the masters of the genre. Like many of the movie "greats", McCrea never seemed to be acting - which is probably why he was underrated - but his face always let the audience know what his character was thinking. As with Gary Cooper, there was something about Joel McCrea that made him a "natural" for Westerns, even though his early work was in comedies and dramas.While on his way to see his estranged brother at the end of the civil war, Ned Bannon (Joel McCrea) is bushwhacked for no apparent reason by Zarata (Michael Ansara) and is left for dead. He is rescued and revived by settlers bound for California. The settlers are planning to pass through land owned by Ned's brother Hardy (Barry Kelley). Ned warns them that his brother will attack them and that there is no trail beyond anyway, but the settlers' leader Harper (George Neiss) dismisses his warnings. Even more mysteriously, Harper encourages the settlers not to proceed to California but to build their homes on Hardy's land. It it as though Harper wants a war between Hardy and the settlers, but why? "The Tall Stranger" tells its story briskly. The gun fights are noisy and the fist fights are savage. Very admirably, although many of the characters are good-natured, there is no sentimentality in the movie until suddenly, out of the blue, comes a moment of real sentimentality - and it works. It has real impact! Two of the settlers, a young woman (Virginia Mayo) and her son, have taken refuge with Ned in a barn owned by Hardy. Hardy is planning to ambush the settlers to drive them off his land. Ned tries to reason with him to no avail. He points to the woman and her son, and asks Hardy what threat are they to him. Hardy blusters that he did not invite them onto his land, and that he is going ahead with his intended massacre. The boy goes over to Hardy, looks up him with a child's trusting eyes and asks him why he hates them. Hardy looks down at the boy . . . . . and his face crumbles. It's outrageous! It's a blatant tug at our heart strings - and it works! It's the emotional high point of the movie."The Tall Stranger" has a strong cast. Unfortunately, Virginia Mayo as the love interest has a token female role which contributes nothing to the plot. For some reason, Virginia Mayo antagonised quite a few film-lovers in the 40s and 50s, but she was always a perfectly adequate and decorative leading lady, and is so here. The supporting cast is interesting because three actors who usually played villains in the 1950s, play likable characters in "The Tall Stranger". That most forceful actor, Leo Gordon, for once plays an out-and-out good guy: Hardy's loyal and sensible right hand man. Whit Bissell who normally played worms and weasels here plays a friendly and obliging settler - and does it well. Ray Teal who often played sly characters with dishonourable ulterior motives, plays an amiable and slightly simple settler. Only Michael Ansara, a regular villain in '50's movies, remains true to form. Zarata not only murders people: he tries rape as well."The Tall Stranger" is not a well-known film, and it is unlikely that it will make it onto DVD, but if it does, I will buy my copy immediately.