Silver Lode (1954)

Silver Lode (1954)

starring John Payne, Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea

directed by Allan Dwan

81 minutes

Dan Ballard (John Payne) is about to get married to Rose Evans (Lizabeth Scott) when US Marshall Fred McCarty (Dan Duryea) comes to town with a warrant for Dan's arrest. He is wanted for killing McCarty's brother and stealing $20,000. The people of Silver Lode can't believe it. They stand by Dan. McCarty reluctantly gives Dan a couple hours to prove his innocence after the local judge and sheriff insist on it.

Dan is convinced that McCarty isn't really a US Marshall. He tries to get a wire out to Sacramento but the telegraph isn't working. The lines have been cut. Dan convinces Johnson, one of the men McCarty brought with him, to tell him the truth. Johnson is convinced that once Dan is out of the way he's next. Dan gets $5,000 from Rose's father, the fee that Johnson wanted for his cooperation. He gets the full story from Johnson but then McCarty kills Johnson.

McCarty pins the murder of Johnson on Dan. The sheriff also get killed in the shootout. Pretty soon most of the town has turned against Dan and is also hunting him down. Dolly, who works in the saloon, tries to help Dan out but she wants him for herself. Dan goes on the run within town. Rose is still on his side. Rose and Dolly work with Paul Herbert, Silver Lode's telegrapher, to find out the truth about McCarty after the telegraph lines have been repaired.

Thoughts

This is a Western because of the location but it also kind of a film noir.

I've seen Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea in a number of films before but this is the first time that I can recall seeing them in a Western. Duryea gets considerably more screen time in this one that Scott did.

This was a lot of fun. It was also kind of ridiculous how quickly some of the twists in the story happened. It didn't seem to take long for most of the people of Silver Lode to go from staunchly supporting Dan to trying to gun him down. It seems like more than once that Dan's goose is cooked but he manages to slip away from McCarty each of those time. There were some good lines. There were also some good chase scenes.