Before they teamed up with Budd Boetticher to make some of the greatest Westerns of all time, Randolph Scott and producer Harry Joe Brown made a lot of very good Westerns with other, lesser directors. They featured interesting characters and situations and superb location shooting — a cut above the usual B-Western fare. The Nevadan, now available from the Warner Archive, is one of the best of them. Its cast includes a very vexing Dorothy Malone in one of her earliest leading roles. Her character gets the hots for Scott’s character when she sees how he handles a half-broken horse he’s tricked into riding — which is, as they say west of the Pecos, comme il faut.
If you’re a fan of Westerns, ignore the poster, one of the ugliest ever used to promote a film, and check this one out.
Enjoy your site, especially the graphics and the great subject matter. Here is a useless piece of information that I feel compelled to reveal: I went to school with Harry Joe Brown Jr., known as “Coco.” His friends added the epithet, “with the scum on top.” He was a great guy, and the son of Harry Joe Brown.
Cool — fans of the Western owe an incalculable debt to Harry Joe Brown.
Yes, this is one hideous poster. Scott looks like he is constipated, and his gun hand is deformed. It makes me queasy just to look at it. But based on your comments, will keep an eye open for this on Netflix.
It’s definitely worth a look.