RIDE CLEAR OF DIABLO

US, 1954, 80 minutes, Colour.
Audie Murphy, Susan Cabot, Dan Durea, Abbe Lane, Jack Elam, Denver Pyle.
Directed by Jesse Hibbs.

One of many brief westerns made by Universal Studios in the fifties with Audie Murphy. Generally they are entertaining small budgeted, conventional westerns but have sound structure and present the conventions of the western very well. Audlie Murphy, the celebrated war hero, has a strong personality for westerns. This film was directed by Jesse Hibbs, who directed many of Murphy’s westerns as weII as his biographical To HeII and Back.

1. An entertaining western?

2. A B Budget western and its use of conventions? The western town, the villains and their hiding behind the Iaw, rustling and murder? The hero and vengeance and inquiry after the killers? The romance and
the linking of the heroine to the villains? The gunfighter? The confrontations? The shoot-out and the romantic ending? How well treated?

3. Colour photography, western locations ? The score?

4. How plausible was the plot? for the purposes of the western conventions? The town, the administration of law, crookedness? Cattle farms and rustling? Deaths? The way of life in the town? The romance? Clay as hero? Whitey as gunfighter and yet secondary hero?

5. Audie Murphy and his presence? Clay as credible hero, his railroad job, vengeance, friendship with the clergyman, reliance on the law? His taking in of Whitey to everyone’s surprise? Friendship with Laurie and the ball, falling in love, her relationship to the sheriff? the marriage? His work, his retrieving of the stallion? His investigation of Ringer? Of the bullion? friendship with Whitey and heIp at the end?

6. Laurie as heroine strong, engaged to Meredith, in love with Clay, her disappointment at the truth, the happy ending?

7. Whitey as gunslinger, trying to get the better of CIay, respect for him, his release after the false trial, his helping him and the irony of his being shot? His going out with guns blazing as he became human?

8. The villains: the Sheriff. Meredith and his false front and double dealing, the Lowry gang? Ringer, viIlains? Kate and her singing? Love for Ringer, friendship with Whitey? and his revelation of the truth?

9. The special effects, chases, shoot-outs, fights etc. ?

10. The American heritage of the honesty, truth, justice, law and order?