In the last film produced by the celebrated Val Lewton (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie), a gambler and gunman reluctantly returns to the desert mining town he’s just been expelled from to warn the citizens of an impending attack by Mescalero warriors. Excitingly directed by Fregonese, the final siege sequence inside a dance hall turned fortress sets the stage for films-to-come like Rio Bravo, Night of the Living Dead, and Assault on Precinct 13, and is “one of the most remarkable passages in American cinema” (Dave Kehr, Il Cinema Ritrovato Program Guide). Restored in 4K in 2021 by Universal Pictures in collaboration with The Film Foundation at NBC Universal StudioPost laboratory, from a 35mm nitrate 3-strip original negative preserved by UCLA Film and Television Archive.
