Stranger on Horseback

Director: Jacques Tourneur

1955 / 66min / DCP

Tourneur’s horse opera makes room for one scene-stealing feline, with Orangey as the preening, lolling ginger tom that keeps Emile Meyer’s Sheriff—and his jailhouse guests—company. Atmospherist par excellence Tourneur’s zesty Ansco color adaptation of a Louis L’Amour yarn stars the redoubtable Joel McCrea as an upright circuit court judge who, riding into the town of Bannerman, discovers it to be in the grips of a single cattle-rich family of the same name headed by patriarch John McIntire. Soon enough, he finds himself at loggerheads with the local self-styled aristocrats, particularly bad seed scion Kevin McCarthy.

New 2k digital restoration courtesy of Kit Parker Films

Distributor: Kit Parker Films