Review of The Man from Laramie (1955) by Mike M — 20 May 2008

Never settles down in the manner you'd expect of a Western. Certainly, there's something offputting in the way Stewart serves for the most part as a minor distraction, a mild annoyance: the cattle company has problems interesting enough before his trader starts snooping about, not least the presence in their ranks of one of the screen's best mannered and outwardly most respectable serial killers.

The final half-hour at least - a search for a wagon full of guns which is also a quest to prove/disprove the character of the living and the dead - demonstrates Mann's ability to weld psychological signifiers to action.