Rancho Notorious (1952)

A rancher (Arthur Kennedy) is hell bent on revenge after his fiancée (Gloria Henry) is raped and murdered. To this end, he pretends to be an outlaw on the run, hoping to find the killer at a hideout for outlaws run by Marlene Dietrich (inanimate as ever). One can see what might have attracted Fritz Lang to this uneven western. But he did it with more success the following year, using a variation of this story for the noir THE BIG HEAT which had a similar premise. Glenn Ford vows to find the killers of his wife among a crime syndicate with Gloria Grahame subbing for Dietrich. Shot in hot Technicolor, Lang is too restrained for the material which cries out for the excess of a Samuel Fuller or Nicholas Ray. Still, it’s Lang so it’s not without some merit but it’s one of his least interesting films. With Mel Ferrer, William Frawley, George Reeves, Jack Elam and Lisa Ferraday.