That's how the entrance to this town claims itself to be, but you find out very quickly that nice on the surface doesn't necessarily mean nice in the soul. A big city reporter (MacDonald Carey) finds this out when a young Mexican man (Lalo Rios) finds himself on the run and stirring up the so-called good folk by misreports of the press and the rumor mill which label this "cholo" as a violent menace to society when all he was guilty of was defending himself.
Like Fritz Lang's "Fury" over a decade before, this covers the topic of how frenzied a mob can be when thinking through anger, not common sense, and lacking in the facts in the poor man's case. Rios isn't presented as perfect, either, as his temper gets the better of him when a bigoted young white man refers to him in the derogatory term of "cholo". A fight breaks out at a local dance where Carey meets a Mexican-American reporter (Gail Russell) and learns the truth about how the people of the Sleepy Hollow section of the city are treated and misjudged. A young girl blames her accidental bruising on Rios, another farmer claims he attacked him, and soon, the locales are furious, out to lynch the poor young man without benefit of a trial. Carey writes an article sympathetic towards him and ends up a victim of their fury as well.
Veteran character actress Lee Patrick plays a hard-boiled reporter acquaintance of Carey's who sees things from a different perspective and seems to be responsible for elevating the anger towards Rios. She directs the girl knocked out by her own clumsiness (not Rios) to show off her bruises as if modeling a new dress just to get a story. This adds another important element to the theme of the film besides the unjustified prejudice, that being the abuse of the freedom of the press, a subject very much prominent today. Like another important independent film made about race relations ("The Ring"), this shows Mexican/Americans in a more realistic light than the happy-go-lucky music/dancing obsessed bumpkins they were made out to be in many classic films.
The subject of prejudice is one still prominent today, and in seeing films like this, you begin to understand the anger of non-whites towards Caucasians. This makes this an important film historically to show why assumptions can never be justified and how judging based simply on different race, creed or skin color is wrong no matter what is presented in the media. This makes a good companion film to the controversial "Ace in the Hole" (aka "The Big Carnival") in how a media obsessed public can turn the truth or a simple story into a media circus.
Like Fritz Lang's "Fury" over a decade before, this covers the topic of how frenzied a mob can be when thinking through anger, not common sense, and lacking in the facts in the poor man's case. Rios isn't presented as perfect, either, as his temper gets the better of him when a bigoted young white man refers to him in the derogatory term of "cholo". A fight breaks out at a local dance where Carey meets a Mexican-American reporter (Gail Russell) and learns the truth about how the people of the Sleepy Hollow section of the city are treated and misjudged. A young girl blames her accidental bruising on Rios, another farmer claims he attacked him, and soon, the locales are furious, out to lynch the poor young man without benefit of a trial. Carey writes an article sympathetic towards him and ends up a victim of their fury as well.
Veteran character actress Lee Patrick plays a hard-boiled reporter acquaintance of Carey's who sees things from a different perspective and seems to be responsible for elevating the anger towards Rios. She directs the girl knocked out by her own clumsiness (not Rios) to show off her bruises as if modeling a new dress just to get a story. This adds another important element to the theme of the film besides the unjustified prejudice, that being the abuse of the freedom of the press, a subject very much prominent today. Like another important independent film made about race relations ("The Ring"), this shows Mexican/Americans in a more realistic light than the happy-go-lucky music/dancing obsessed bumpkins they were made out to be in many classic films.
The subject of prejudice is one still prominent today, and in seeing films like this, you begin to understand the anger of non-whites towards Caucasians. This makes this an important film historically to show why assumptions can never be justified and how judging based simply on different race, creed or skin color is wrong no matter what is presented in the media. This makes a good companion film to the controversial "Ace in the Hole" (aka "The Big Carnival") in how a media obsessed public can turn the truth or a simple story into a media circus.