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Competent western sees MacMurray as a small-town judge who is about to sentence a vicious outlaw to death when four members of the killer's gang show up to free him. The gang, led by Middleton and Homeier, spook the town (including the spineless sheriff) into pleading for the release of the killer. MacMurray refuses to yield, and seeing that he'll get no help from the weak townsfolk, puts on his guns and with the help of his close friend Buchanan, kills off all four members of the gang, keeping the murderer's date with the hangman. Interesting and effective variation on the HIGH NOON (1952) theme, which, with the mimicking that goes on in Hollywood, by 1958 had made a cliche out of the sight of townspeople cowed into submission by gun-toting badmen.