The way you can tell a "B" Western -- and this IS a B Western -- is not always the actors. This movie has a pretty good cast. Joel McCrea (who should have never gone into Westerns in my view) is a really good actor...and he is good here. The supporting cast is pretty decent, too -- Vera Miles, Lloyd Bridges (in his bad-guy era), Wallace Ford, Edgar Buchanan, and Peter Graves. And they do their jobs well.
And, it's not always the story the makes a movie a B movie...although the story here is -- as a couple of other reviewers pointed out -- a little too simplistic.
Sometimes it's just the lack of care that is taken in the production. For example the first day the new railroad comes into town it's on tracks rather overgrown with weeds. Or the high mountains outside Wichita...high mountains in Kansas??? In other words, throw a Western together. It's the 1950s and Westerns are hot. It'll get good box office...and it did. Today this little Western would go nowhere at the box office. I doubt it would even make into theatres. But, that's not to say it's unwatchable. It's slightly better than the average mid-1950s Western.
And, it's not always the story the makes a movie a B movie...although the story here is -- as a couple of other reviewers pointed out -- a little too simplistic.
Sometimes it's just the lack of care that is taken in the production. For example the first day the new railroad comes into town it's on tracks rather overgrown with weeds. Or the high mountains outside Wichita...high mountains in Kansas??? In other words, throw a Western together. It's the 1950s and Westerns are hot. It'll get good box office...and it did. Today this little Western would go nowhere at the box office. I doubt it would even make into theatres. But, that's not to say it's unwatchable. It's slightly better than the average mid-1950s Western.