Desperate to save his father's ranch, cowboy Joel McCrea quietly robs a bank for
$2,000 and leaves an I.O.U. that he intends on paying the money back.
McCrea barely gets away by jumping on a train, but not before getting bitten by
a rattlesnake. A nurse onboard the train (Frances Dee) tends to his wound
and naturally becomes interested in him. Meanwhile, the banker is outraged
over the robbery and he puts a
massive bounty on McCrea's head. So
now everybody in the territory is after him! Back on the train, a fellow
passenger, Monte Marquez (Joseph Calleia without his mustache), has discovered
that McCrea is wanted, but he senses that McCrea is a good man so he covers for
him on more than one occasion. McCrea narrowly manages to stays one step
ahead of the coppers, but his conscience and his desire to have a future with
Dee causes him a lot of internal conflict.
I was really surprised by FOUR FACES WEST. The only thing I knew about it
going into it was it starred Joel McCrea and his real-life wife Frances Dee
(they had been together for 13 years in 1948 and would remain together until his
death in 1990) and it ended up being a great little, slightly off-beat
western. First off the scenes between McCrea and Dee were fantastic.
There was no disguising their attraction for each other. Besides that, the
story was really good, the action moved along quickly, the acting was great, the
scenery beautiful and most surprisingly is there was never one single gun fired
or punch thrown in the entire film! I can't even recall another western as
exciting as this one that didn't even have at least a fight of some kind.
Highly recommended for classic western fans.
