«You sure make fine coffee, ma’am», says upright widower Randolph Scott to luscious widow Karen Steele at campfire time, and you know you’re in Budd Boetticher-Burt Kennedy country. Is this the best of the Boetticher-Scott Westerns («immaculately drawn miniatures», Jim Kitses called them in Horizon West)? Certainly is the wittiest, most lyrical and least pessimistic and boasts the most amiable outlaws in Pernell Roberts and (making his film debut) James Coburn. This restoration, too – from Sony Pictures’ ace preservationist Grover Crisp – supports the case, with its faded Cinemascope and Eastmancolor negative renovated by a new photo-chemical process. […] The classic Boetticher set-up, ritualistically played out with intelligent irony, climaxing round one of the director’s favourite props, the hanging tree.

Clyde Jeavons