Sadly underrated on its original release, this final film in the series of Ranown westerns from director Budd Boetticher and co-producer/star Randolph Scott is a fine meditation on ageing. It's a companion piece thematically to The Searchers with Scott rescuing a rancher's wife who has been kidnapped by Comanches. But this is arguably bleaker and more realistic than John Ford's film, and strips the genre to its bare essentials. Supporting the craggy Scott is the well-cast Claude Akins as a flamboyant bounty hunter, and their final confrontation is especially effective. Particularly notable is Burt Kennedy's screenplay, which utilises the western's emotive iconography brilliantly: the Scott character is called Cody, while the journey is to Lordsburg - also the destination of the travellers in Stagecoach.

A white man trades with the Comanche for the release of a female stranger and the pair cross paths with three outlaws who have their eyes on the handsome reward for bringing her home and Comanche on the warpath.