I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

I was tempted to give this movie a "6", but one thing saved it -- it's different...not the typical Western.That doesn't mean that it doesn't have problems. First off, I don't buy that tattoos look exactly like birthmarks. Second, much later in the film, the landscape is swarming with Mexicans hunting Ladd and his charge...but they sneak through. It's a lot to swallow. And, the "Mexican father" gives up way too easily to make a happy ending.On the positive side, Ladd was a good actor and is good here. Mona Freeman was decent as the future love interest. Charles Bickford, a very good actor, didn't get much screen time; that was a disappointment. Robert Keith was, to be honest, too villainous, making his part seem like a caricature. Joseph Calleia as the "Mexican father"...a little stereotypical, as well. Peter Hansen as the son...he is satisfactory. Selena Royle, apparently once the lover of Spencer Tracy...is fine as the mother. Tom Tully, whom I remembered well from "The Caine Muitiny" is along as a ranch hand, as is Milburn Stone (Doc from "Gunsmoke)...but I didn't recognize him at all.This is a film that could use some restoration. It was filmed in various places in central Arizona, and it's gorgeous scenery.It's okay to pass some time, but this is not one of the great Westerns.

As with many older Westerns from the Fifties, this one is entertaining while viewing, but then when you think about the story, elements start cropping up that make you question what the writers were thinking about when they put it together. Take the character of Jeff Leffingwell/'Leff' (Robert Keith). You mean to tell me this guy lived his life the last twenty five years waiting to engineer a massive swindle by kidnapping a five year old, waiting for the kid to grow up, and then con an outlaw into pretending he was the man grown up? What?!?! Now as this gets revealed to the viewer it all seems credible enough. Alan Ladd pulls off the impersonation believably, and one gets the impression that he's genuinely transformed his character by working with the Lavery family while assuming the role of long lost son. Even when he goes off to find the real missing Richard Lavery, it's with a genuine sense of purpose to redeem himself for duping the Lavery's after they've opened their hearts and home to him.But here's where the resolution gets sticky? When Mateo Rubriz (Joseph Calleia) and his men arrive at the Lavery Ranch, where was loyal foreman Ransom (Tom Tully) and the rest of the hired hands? It was as if Rubriz had a free run of the place and just managed to show up in the room where Tonio was convalescing from his gunshot wound. Then, with both families patching things up between them, Ruth Lavery (Mona Freeman) hurries after Choya (Ladd) to take that proverbial ride into the sunset. But wait, she was a devoted daughter up to that point, but now she's just riding off without even saying good bye? See what I mean? And yet, all in all it's a pretty good story even if not in the same league as Ladd's seminal Western film 'Shane". That point I think even the Fonz would agree on.

The opening scenes set the tone of the film… Ladd, an itinerant gunman known simply as Choya and with the aid of a tattooed birthmark, passes himself off as the lost son and is accepted wholeheartedly by the parents (Bickford and Royle) and Ruth (Freeman), the man's sister… Ruth had responded to his arrival on the ranch as any pretty woman would respond to a mysterious, handsome stranger, but she rapidly sets right to the fact that he is a relative… As soon as he is welcomed as Richard Jr, however, something happens to Choya… As a member of a loving family, Choya experiences feelings denied him by his own childhood and became increasingly sickened by his contribution in the tricking…Leading a cattle drive to El Paso, Choya decides to give up his charade revealing his true identity to Ruth, who turns on him with consternation and antagonism… There remains only one way to redeem himself and make up for the distressing emotion he has caused the Lavery family: To find their real son… All the elements in "Branded" are taken directly from the straight-shooting school of Western movies… Choya, despite his confession to Ruth that he is a "four-flushin' thief," is true-blue outlaw hero… The smart Leffingwell has him classified correctly: "You won't hit an older man. You ain't the kind that'll draw first, or shoot a man in the back." Even with the rules thus outlined, Ladd still has a chance to present his standard beguiling bad guy early in the film, merely holding back a victorious smile as he pretends confusion over the elder Lavery's excited reaction to his birthmark… Besides its other values, "Branded" is a visual delight… In fact, the movie's one drawback as a Western entertainment is a lack of big action highlights

While on the dodge from a shooting scrape, gunfighter Alan Ladd meets up with a pair of drifters, Robert Keith and John Berkes. They want him to pose as the long lost son of a prominent Texas rancher Charles Bickford who was kidnapped as a child and never heard from again. John Berkes is a tattoo artist and he gives Alan Ladd a tattoo that looks like a birth mark the child had. It works all too well as Ladd is welcomed into the home of Bickford and wife Selena Royle. In addition there's a sister in the home played by Mona Freeman and Ladd is not developing brotherly feelings for her.In the end he can't go through with fleecing these decent people and Ladd sets out to set things right.Branded was Ladd's second starring western after Whispering Smith and he proved to be equally well received here. The urban Ladd of the films Paramount put him in starting with This Gun for Hire gradually gave way to a western character and he would do more of them of varying quality over the rest of his career. The best of which was that immortal classic Shane.In one sense though Ladd's character is very much like Raven in This Gun for Hire. Both of them were orphans with great big chips on their shoulders. Imagine Raven a little earlier than when he met up with Veronica Lake and got into the home of a couple like Bickford and Royle and you have a pretty good idea of what Ladd's character Choya is like in Branded.Acting honors however go to the ever dependable Joseph Calleia as a Mexican bandit chief and to Robert Keith. Keith usually was a good guy in most films, a typical role for him would be the father of the Tuttle girls as he was in Young at Heart. He completely plays against type as a slime ball bottom feeder who turns out to be far more despicable than even we originally think.Branded is a good western and Alan Ladd and the cast members should be proud of their work in this one.