Review of Backlash (1956) by Van R — 16 Oct 2009

BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK director John Sturges made BACKLASH as his second period era western. This old west yarn chronicles the efforts of Jim Slater (Richard Widmark) to find the father that he never knew.

The Texas native is searching the gravesite of five men at Gila Valley where an Indian massacre occurred when he crosses trails with Karyl Orton (Donna Reed of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY) who is searching for her long, lost husband.

The dark truth about the past lays hidden from them for most of the 84 minute running time. Sixty-thousand dollars worth of gold figures prominently in the mystery. Widmark and Reed get to slap each other and talk tough.

After they meet in the desert, Orton asks Slater to fetch her cigarette. As Slater is rummaging around in her saddle bags, Silver City deputy sheriff Tom Welker (Regis Parton of THIS ISLAND EARTH) tries to ambush him.

The trail that Slater rides to learn the ugly truth takes them into an Apache beseiged trading post to ask a U.S. Cavalry Sergeant George Lake (Barton MacLane of HIGH SIERRA) about the bodies since he was in charge of the burial detail.

Slater insists that there was a sixth man, and this sixth man left the others to die at the hands of the redskins. Meanwhile, there is a feud brewing between Bonniwell (John Mcintire of WAGON TRAIN) and another rancher Major Carson (Roy Roberts of MY DARLING CLEMENTINE) and along the way Slater has to shoot it out with a decked out in leather hired pistolero, Johnny Cool (William Campbell of ESCAPE FROM FORT BRAVO), who is pretty swift on the draw.

Jack Lambert has a minor role as a guy who sells rifles to the Indians, while future DRAGNET star Harry Morgan and Robert J. Wilke of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN play gun-toting brothers out to kill Slater for having killed their brother at the outset.

Look closely and you will spot the boss of Maxwell Smart playing a sheriff. Edward Platt wears a Stetson and a six-gun. Taut western with a surprise ending.