STRANGER ON HORSEBACK (1955)

Circuit judge Joel McCrea is making the rounds when he comes upon a town that's run completely by one man, Josiah Bannerman (John McIntire).  There also happened to be an undocumented shooting a few days ago involving Bannerman's son, Tom (Kevin McCarthy).  The shooting was supposedly in self-defense, but once McCrea starts doing some digging he sees that the younger Bannerman has a history of killing people in "self-defense".  He arrests Tom, but that go over like a dry wet fart with Bannerman and his hired guns.  Will McCrea live long enough to get Tom to trial?

The story's not original, but the strong cast makes this an interesting time waster.  Unfortunately, due to the lack of action scenes the runtime is only 66 minutes (including the credits).  Director Jacques Tourneur had a lot of films under his belt by this time in his career, so I'm sure he knew the script needed punching up, but I'm guessing the budget didn't allow it.  Fortunately, his next film, the same year's WICHITA (also staring McCrea) turned out better.

Good cast, steady pace, low action, forced romantic storyline, cat sitting on a desk, nice photography, unoriginal story.  Average lower budget 1950's Western.