Man In The Shadow (1957)

After a Mexican bracero (migrant farm worker) is brutally killed because of his attention to the daughter (Colleen Miller) of a cattle baron (a restrained Orson Welles), it falls to the newly elected sheriff (Jeff Chandler) to bring the boy's murderers to justice. But he receives stiff resistance in his investigation, not only from the ranch but from the townspeople who depend on the cattle ranch for their livelihood. This minor contemporary western (the sheriff drives instead of rides) directed by Jack Arnold (IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE) is an intense piece of "B" movie making, perhaps slightly ahead of its time in that it examines the resentment of "illegal aliens" and how they are considered somewhat less than human by the Caucasian townspeople. It presages Arthur Penn's THE CHASE which came 9 years later in that it covers remarkably similar territory even down to a shocking and brutal beating on the sheriff, Chandler here and Brando in THE CHASE. The film borders on something almost great that could have elevated it from a "B" movie to an important one but it's not sufficiently well written to transcend itself. Plus, there's one huge loophole (plenty of witnesses that saw the killers drag the victim away) that's never addressed. With Barbara Lawrence, James Gleason, Ben Alexander, John Larch, Royal Dano, Paul Fix, William Schallert and Leo Gordon.