Blood on the Moon

In this tight, well-crafted adaptation of Luke Short's novel GUNMAN'S CHOICE, a drifter finds himself caught in the middle of a battle between a rancher and a ruthless group of cattle rustlers. Jim Garry (Robert Mitchum) meets up with his old friend Tate Riling (Robert Preston), who gives him a job. Unbeknownst to Garry, Riling has been exacerbating a feud between rancher John Lufton (Tom Tully) and a group of settlers, including the greedy Jake Pindalist (Frank Faylen), to make sure that Lufton and his family don't get grazing land for their cattle. If his scheme proves successful, Riling stands to grab the Luftons' livestock at a fire-sale price. Because he is broke, Jim agrees to become one of Tate's henchmen but expresses no enthusiasm for the scheme. He soon becomes embroiled in a dramatic and deadly situation involving Riling, Lufton, and Lufton's daughter Amy (Barbara Bel Geddes), for whom he has romantic feelings. Garry must face questions of his own morality while surviving in the harsh West in this moody, complex film that's laced with the tension of impending violence.