She does play a key role in the film’s climax.
We also get DeForest Kelly in one of his bigger pre-Star Trek roles as a snarling member of the outlaw gang.Ĭolleen Miller is the top-billed female, but her role is relatively small, that of a saloon owner Gifford flirts with a bit when he first arrives in Comanche Creek. Cooper is fine as the member of the gang who’s never killed anyone and dreams of a life outside the gang. Murphy plays a lady’s man, which is a bit unusual for him. If the plot sounds familiar, that might be because this is a remake of the 1957 George Montgomery film called “Last of the Badmen.” Not that the earlier version was so great it was just begging to be remade. What they don’t know is that there aren’t too many people who can be trusted in nearby Comanche Creek. Ben Cooper is Kid Carter, a reluctant member of the gang and, Gifford thinks, the most likely to help him when the time is right. Jan Merlin plays Nielson, the detective assigned to keep an eye on Gifford. Can he find out who’s behind the thievery before the reward on his head climbs to temptingly high. And, before long, the gang breaks him out. Tanner manages to get thrown into jail easily enough. Now they’re sending one of their best, Ben Gifford (Audie Murphy) posing as an outlaw named Judd Tanner. The National Detective Agency of Wichita wants to break up the gang, but has already lost one undercover officer trying to do it. Then, when the reward on said outlaw climbs high enough, they kill him and collect the reward money too. They make him the front man for their holdups, the one man who can be identified.
A gang operating in Colorado has an ingenious method of thievery.