Ramrod (1947)

Dave Nash (Joel McCrea) is a cow-poke who gets hired by Connie Dickason (Veronica Lake) to help her run her ranch following the murder of her fiancé by her father and one of his cronies. However, she's less interested in ranching and more interested in getting revenge, and she uses her feminine allure to persuade Nash's friend to start a range war under false pretences by stampeding their own cattle. A few deaths later, and it all draws to an inevitable blood conclusion.

Although this isn't André de Toth's best Western (that's undoubtedly Day of the Outlaw) it's certainly up there at the top. There's a strong sense of inevitability once the "heroine" has set things going, and that's well represented by how claustrophobic the valley it's set in seems (which I guess would make it quite unsuitable for ranching, but that's probably an irrelevant diversion...). The characterisation is mostly strong: Connie is suitably subtly manipulative while Dave Nash is believable loyal, and slightly naive. Nash's friend (Dan DeFore), and his reaction to realising that he's unwittingly betrayed everyone, also comes across in a believably understated way. The only aspect that didn't quite gel for me was Nash's backstory, about his alcoholism and his the previous loss of his family. It provided something of a way into the story for him, but seemed slightly irrelevant and mostly came across as a plot thread that was dropped at a late stage.

The UK DVD from Simply Media looks generally quite good (see the screenshots), with the exception of some odd freeze-frames on the credits, presumably to hide where the print is damaged? There is a US blu-ray version too.

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