Dallas Reviews

Strong, silent Cooper is a gunslinging ex-Confederate officer whom we first see in the middle of a sun-baked street facing Wild Bill Hickok (Hadley). He appears to be killed by the frontier marshal, but it's all an act to allow Cooper to later pose as a newly appointed US Marshal in wide-open Dallas, switching identities with namby-pamby Erickson. In Dallas, Cooper goes after the evil Marlow brothers--Massey, the brains, and Cochran and Murray, the brawn of the gang that runs Dallas. This is also the same terrible trio that burned down Cooper's ancestral home during the Civil War, he later learns. Adding to these sins, Massey hatches a scheme to steal the vast lands owned by Moreno, whose sultry daughter Roman has captured Cooper's heart. After gunning down Murray and Cochran, Cooper rides to the rescue of Moreno's family. Massey and thugs are holding Roman for ransom until Moreno returns to the hacienda with all the funds he can draw from the bank. But the serape-clad man entering the hacienda estate is Cooper in disguise. He kills several henchmen before dueling it out with Massey in the darkened Spanish mansion, saving his girl and gleaning vengeance for past wrongs with one fatal shot. DALLAS is an above-average western with a strong score by Steiner and brisk direction by Heisler, but the story is an old one, and despite Cooper's commanding presence the plot is fairly predictable.