tkech This movie is truly awful. The dialogue and events are plodding clichés. I will watch just about anything - I am not picky. But I've seen better stories written by 14-year- olds.Even Harlequin Romance would not have bought this dreck on their worst day. Great actors Garson and Andrews were given nothing to work with here. There was no logic for Andrews random cliché barking love/hate attitudes towards the entirely passive female played by Garson. We kept expecting the "forced kiss to put her in her place" trope. We kept watching in hopes the movie would get better.It didn't.EDIT: I also kept watching expecting to see a closeup of my beloved Garson's face. They never did one. Not ONE. That's when I realized she must have been deemed "old" in Hollywood's eyes. :-(

tqwilcox First off it's Garson's last film. And secondly it features a very distinct difference in acting styles. Garson displays her grand style in use of language and presentation as if she were back on the stage. Andrews displays the man from "The Best Years of Our Lives" years on who opted to not so much act as be present. And then there's the new kid, Lois Smith. Her very contemporary (for 1955) Brandoesque inhabiting of "Spurs" puts all of this together in the strangest way imaginable. I think SHE was the "Strange Lady in Town" or at least this movie. There is also the reality of how women Hollywood films seem to be retired once the aging process makes them too old for leading ladies. Garson isn't the best representative for this argument because her acting style was of another era. But she should have been able to continue on were she not so much a star. That comes through here loud and clear.

vincentlynch-moonoi There are few actresses of the caliber of Greer Garson, and it's difficult to believe that she only made a couple of dozen pictures. This was her first after leaving MGM, and it was 5 years before her next film in which she played Eleanor Roosevelt. This was not one of her best films, but she's that rare actor that one almost always marvels at her performance, even when the script is not the best.That's not to say that this is a bad film. It's pretty decent. Her co-star is Dana Andrews, a fine actor. His role here is not very positive -- he's playing a fellow doctor (Garson, a female doctor) who doesn't believe in female doctors and thinks women belong under a man's thumb. Of course they fall in love, though Andrews' role was over-done...I'd blame the director...and his constant switch between love and anger is rather tedious. Along the way there are a number of sub-plots: Garson's brother is a raffish soldier in love with Andrew's daughter...and eventually he's a bank robber who gets shot. Oh yes, and there's a guest appearance (so to speak) by Billy The Kid (played by Nick Adams).The daughter of Andrews is played by Lois Smith, who mellowed nicely in her later years, and is pretty decent here, also. Cameron Mitchell plays her romantic interest / solider, and I have little more use for him here than I do in most any other film he appears in. Walter Hampden is good as the old priest. The remaining cast do their jobs, but little more.Ironically, the film begins on a dusty wagon road into Santa Fe, and although actually filmed in Arizona, the area does look a lot like the land around the Forked Lightning Ranch where Greer Garson eventually lived and retired with her third husband in 1967...on the way to Santa Fe.This is hardly a classic western, or even a classic Greer Garson film. But it's pretty good. And Garson is as beautiful, and sassy, and that intriguing blend of refined and spicy that made her so alluring.It's well worth watching, though probably only once.

funkyfry Somewhat noneventful tale of a woman doctor in 1880s Santa Fe. She tames local doc Andrews, but her brother (Mitchell) turns out to be a bad seed. The best thing about this film is Lois Smith's gamine performance as Andrews' daughter -- very cute and pretty nice performance.