Dawn at Socorro **½ (1954, Rory Calhoun, Piper Laurie, David Brian, Kathleen Hughes, Alex Nicol, Edgar Buchanan, Mara Corday) – Classic Movie Review 13,428

Universal Pictures’ 1954 Western Technicolor film Dawn at Socorro stars Rory Calhoun, Piper Laurie, David Brian, Kathleen Hughes, Alex Nicol, Edgar Buchanan, and Mara Corday.

Director George Sherman’s 1954 Universal Western Technicolor film Dawn at Socorro stars Rory Calhoun, Piper Laurie, David Brian, Kathleen Hughes, Alex Nicol, Edgar Buchanan, and Mara Corday.

Dawn at Socorro is a robust treatment of the usual Western story about a reformed shootist (Rory Calhoun) forced to fight a final gun battle.

The cast is the main asset of this over-familiarly scripted Western yarn: David Brian as the bad guy, saloonkeeper Dick Braden, Piper Laurie as the love interest, dance-hall girl Rannah Hayes, Edgar Buchanan as the edgy lawman, Sheriff Cauthen, plus several good names in the character support. They notably include Lee Van Cleef, Mara Corday, Skip Homeier, Roy Roberts, James Millican, Richard Garland, and Paul Brinegar.

All of them give involving turns, better than Calhoun’s inexpressive lead performance as the retired gunfighter Brett Wade.

There are two other main assets. It is shot in remarkable Technicolor images by Carl E Guthrie, partly on location at Apple Valley, California, and Victorville, California, (as well as at Universal Studios of course), and given a decent production by careful producer William Alland.

Socorro is a city in Socorro County in New Mexico, though the film is mostly set in Lordsburg, Hidalgo County, southwest New Mexico.

But Lordsburg was founded in 1880 on the route of the Southern Pacific Railroad, nine years after the film is set.

The introductory narration lies when it says that the story (written by George Zuckerman) is based on a shootout in Lordsburg in 1871.

Instead, Zuckerman’s plot fictionalises the 1881 gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, where the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday fought the Clanton Gang. So that is why the story is over familiar.

The cast

The cast are Rory Calhoun as Brett Wade, Piper Laurie as Rannah Hayes, David Brian as Dick Braden, Kathleen Hughes as Clare, Alex Nicol as Jimmy Rapp, Edgar Buchanan as Sheriff Cauthen, Mara Corday as Letty Diamond, Roy Roberts as Doc Jameson, Skip Homeier as Buddy Ferris, James Millican as Harry McNair, Lee Van Cleef as Earl Ferris, Stanley Andrews Old Man Ferris, Richard Garland as Tom Ferris, Scott Lee as Vince McNair, Paul Brinegar as Desk Clerk, Philo McCullough as Rancher, and Forrest Taylor as Jebb Hayes.

Dawn at Socorro is directed by George Sherman, runs 80 minutes, is made by Universal International Pictures, is released by Universal Pictures, is written by George Zuckerman, is shot in Technicolor by Carl E Guthrie, is produced by William Alland, and is scored by Joseph Gershenson.

Release dates: August 27, 1954 (New York City) and September 1, 1954 (Los Angeles).

Mara Corday, Kathleen Hughes, Myrna Hansen and Allison Hayes in publicity for So This Is Paris (1955).

Kathleen Hughes (born Elizabeth Margaret von Gerkan; November 14, 1928)

Mara Corday (born: Marilyn Joan Watts; January 3, 1930)

Mara Corday also appears in So This Is Paris (1955), Tony Curtis’s only film musical.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,428

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