Branded *** (1950, Alan Ladd, Charles Bickford, Mona Freeman, Robert Keith, Joseph Calleia, Peter Hansen, Selena Royle) – Classic Movie Review 5418

Director Rudolph Maté’s robust 1950 Western stars Alan Ladd, who plays a cool crook baddie called Choya, posing as cattle baron Charles Bickford’s and his wife Selena Royle’s long-vanished son, abducted years ago to swindle Bickford.

[Spoiler alert] The couple are taken in and take the lad in, Ladd falls for Bickford’s daughter Ruth (Mona Freeman), has a change of heart, and rescues the real son from Mexican outlaw Rubriz (Joseph Calleia).

Paramount’s taut and engrossing little Western is well above par for the Ladd course, and it comes from his best period. The fine cast, sturdy production, good direction by ex-photographer Maté (in his directorial début) and Charles B Lang Jr’s splendid Technicolor cinematography make up for the lack of surprises in the plotting of Evan Evans’s original novel. The sharp Sydney Boehm-Cyril Hume screenplay makes the most of the material at hand.

Also in the cast are Robert Keith, Peter Hansen in his debut as Tonio, Tom Tully, John Berkes, Milburn Stone, Martin Garralaga, Edward Clark and John Butler.

RIP Peter Hansen, remembered for When Worlds Collide (1951), The War of the Roses (1989) and Dragonfly (2002), who died on 9 April 2017, aged 95.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5418

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