Vengeance Valley (1951)

A Colorado cattle rancher (Ray Collins) has two sons. A natural son (Robert Walker) who is a shiftless wastrel but married to a decent woman (Joanne Dru) and an adopted son (Burt Lancaster) who is honest and loyal. When the married son fathers a child with a local girl (Sally Forrest), her two brothers (John Ireland, Hugh O'Brian as two of the most incompetent bad guys ever seen in a western) come to find the father but the girl won't tell. Essentially a domestic western rather than a traditional western, the film is Cain and Abel in the Old West. It's rather routine with no surprises. We know from the start the predictable journey the film will take and that's just what it does. Walker's character is so obviously a worthless ne'er do well that you know it's just a matter of time until he goes too far and all his enablers will stop covering up for him anymore. He seems to be practicing here for his next role, Bruno in Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. Unenthusiastically directed by Richard Thorpe and nicely shot in Technicolor by George J. Folsey (FORBIDDEN PLANET). With Carleton Carpenter and Ted De Corsia.