Jesse Hibbs's Rails into Laramie

Rails into Laramie, directed by Jesse Hibbs, best known for Audie Murphy films and later a prolific director of TV Westerns, is effectively workmanlike, with bursts of invention.  I especially liked that when a jury of corrupt male citizens refused to convict Dan Duryea of arranging a murder they were replaced by an all-female jury, women getting the right to vote in Wyoming in 1868.  This colorful Western about a corrupt railroad town being cleaned up by a one-man army stars John Payne, who made his way in the fifties from musicals and comedies to Westerns and film noir --I particularly like him in Phil Karlson's 99 River Street (1953) -- a similar path taken by Dick Powell and James Stewart, among others.  There is also a strong female character in Hibbs's film:  Mari Blanchard, business partner of Duryea, who knows how to exploit and manipulate and keeps Payne constantly wondering where her loyalties lie.  The excellent cast includes Charles Griffith as the marshal and Lee Van Cleef as Duryea's bodyguard and hired assassin.