Very well executed

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Underrated Western with some genuinely unusual features. As a long-time fan of Westerns, I've seen only a handful hardy enough to film in the mountains in winter. But the results here are riveting, especially in grainy b&w. Those bleak snow-scapes with the horses trying to plow across are a rare glimpse of trail blazing before the 4-lane highway. The toll on man and beast must have been excruciating. Those memorable scenes are, I believe, the movie's high point, and to the credit of the producers, I could spot only one minor exterior set to break the continuity. Then too, the weather-beaten town looks authentic as heck. I just wish IMDb had been able to identify the locations so I'll know where not to winter hike.Unusual too is the absence of a good-guy hero. The two leads, Ryan and Ives, are both strong characters, but with a wobbly moral compass that wavers somewhere between low- down meaness and high-type nobility. In short, you never know what they're going to do. That makes for two interesting non-stereotypes to drive the plot. I expect one reason the film was passed over by critics is because of sexpot Tina Louise as an audience draw. Known more for her Amazonian measurements than her acting skills, she nevertheless does well enough here, while watching her get bounced around the dance floor, hair flying, is not anything you'll see her Ginger do on TV's Gilligan's Island. Speaking of vintage TV, there's Ozzie & Harriet's elder son David as a good kid who's fallen in with the wrong crowd, and a teenage Venetia Stevenson who looks and sounds more like a malt shop than a frontier town. Somehow, you just know they'll end up together.Nonetheless, it's a payday for a lot of sturdy Hollywood veterans in supporting parts, including the always dependable Dabbs Greer and my favorite plug-ugly bad guy Jack Lambert. Then too, maybe you can figure out what Elisha Cook Jr.'s role is supposed to be, but who cares, just seeing the little fall-guy resonates across a couple of memorable Hollywood decades. And who better to manage scriptwriter Phillip Yordan's parade of shifting alliances than a central European like Andre de Toth, whose 1947 Western Ramrod remains another hidden gem. Anyhow, no movie that pits the steely Robert Ryan against the immovable Burl Ives can afford to be passed up, especially when stretched across an unusually polar landscape that still gives me the cold shivers.

Day Of The Outlaw casts Robert Ryan as a tough westerner who resents the homesteaders like Alan Marshal fencing off the open range. But in Marshal's case, he's got other resents going as well since he's married to Tina Louise who once had a fling with him. He has every intention of doing something about it legally or illegally and who's to question in this remote rugged high country in a town that's barely twenty or so people.But when Burl Ives and a murderous pack of outlaws ride into town and take it over to provision up because the US Cavalry is chasing them, Ryan, Marshal, Louise and everyone else is in the same boat. Imagine if you will Ives's Rufus Hannessy from The Big Country leading a gang of outlaws and you see what the town is up against. The only one not a killer is young David Nelson of the group.Ives has an additional problem, a bullet in his chest and the only doctor around is a veterinarian, Dabbs Greer. He gets the bullet out, but Ives would need proper medical care in a hospital to recover and to guard against internal bleeding. That's what slowly killing him, despite the morphine Greer is loading him up with.That part of the story is absolutely the true. Around this same period President William McKinley was shot in Buffalo and was thought to be recovering at first. But even he did not get adequate medical care and took a turn for the worse and a week later, died. Andre DeToth who did many good and rugged westerns did this grim tale set in the west during the winter. It looks like good skiing country, but this ain't no winter paradise for anyone concerned.

This is an excellent western by Andre de Toth. It is mainly remembered for its final thirty minutes,an extraordinary ride in the snow ,where the director makes the best of black and white pictures while he's filming all the tired horses ...Hell freezes over.But the first hour is absorbing as well with its depiction of an one-horse town lost in the snow,a dead end where one never really knows which ones are prisoners and which ones are guards .The "ball ",during which the four women are really having a bad time (particularly Tina Louise)is one of the most violent scenes ever filmed in a western .And all they are doing is dancing.It has to be seen to be believed! Robert Ryan is ,as always,excellent ,as a tired blasé man who just wants to live in peace.

This is a strange one: superb performances and realistic action set in a wonderfully harsh and beautiful setting, yet let down by plodding, uninspired direction. The sub-plot/romance concerning young Gene and the blonde girl reminded me of "3.10 to Yuma" for some reason, and then I felt a bit disappointed when I compared the two films. The camera work is a bit dull, with only wide shots, and a variety of mid-shots. De Toth never really seems interested in his characters or his story. And, like one of the other reviewers, I was a bit worried about the horses. Still, the location sequences are great, and a wonderful juxtaposition with a more typically dusty Western setting. The gloomy tone of the film, combined with the setting, gives it an intriguingly noir edge.Not bad, but this could have been so much more powerful.But, hey - I could watch Robert Ryan in anything!