It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Take the Grand Canyon, a cave full of tons of bat guano, an aerial tramway, an old deserted mining town, a beautiful red head, Cornel Wilde, Jack Elam, Edgar Buchanan, 50's cars, all filmed in vibrant color, and a few corpses and you get a really different mystery film that moves briskly along during its 80 minutes. This film would be worth watching if only for the scenes of the aerial tramway heading down into the Grand Canyon, something that you'll never see again, and it was all real! The mine depicted in the movie really existed, and so did the U.S. Guano Corporation!!! This movie is a time capsule and is fascinating to watch for just the period effects and the settings. Very enjoyable.

Don Siegel has an eye for the visuals in this mystery story set in the Grand Canyon but the plot and dialogue are merely serviceable.Deputy Sheriff Les Martin (Cornell Wilde) patrols the canyon area which includes an abandoned gold mine. He listens to a tall story told by an old timer of a beaten up guy he saw when he suddenly pursues Janice Kendon (Victoria Shaw) the daughter of a local mine owner who speeds past him and after he books her they begin flirting with each other.Pretty soon the deputy is investigating missing men, murders and looking into whether gold is being smuggled out of the mine works. You have an old coot, a drunken son, a hostile father, a foreman, a comic relief and any one of them could be the shady heavy.There is an entertaining climax with the cable cars high above the canyon and there seemed to be a real bat cave full of bat crap which was involved in the location filming. I think a bit of bat poo went into the script.

In the 1950s when television was beginning to make inroads into the cinema-going audience, Hollywood made films that were grander, bigger, more colourful, and shot on location. So you got huge big budget historical epics, but also smaller films that were given wide screen and colourful location treatment. Thus some movies like the 'crime noir' genre were opened out into big screen colour, thus almost at a stroke cutting 'noir' off from its' roots in black and white. This is such a film. But, despite the fact that Don Siegel is the director, the movie is short on suspense and any deep characterisation - at 80 minutes it really is too short for much. But perhaps the budget was being too stretched! However, we get lots of aerial shots of the tremendous Grand Canyon, and a spirited, breathtaking denouement on a tramway over the said gorge. The actors try, against a very ordinary script. But the plot is fairly preposterous - unknowns taking gold out of an old mine with no-one noticing, until murder of a John Doe sets the flawed Deputy Sheriff (Cornel Wilde) off in pursuit. There are political pressures as well, but never fully realised. A romantic element is in the backdrop and provides the vital breakthrough, but it never all adds up to much, except the scenery and location.

Director Don Siegel and star Cornel Wilde combine to give audiences a fast paced and very entertaining murder mystery that keeps everyone guessing until the breathtaking climax.The wild beauty of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River serve as a backdrop to the mystery This is the closest that Wilde ever came to making a western and he is cast as a former Las Vegas police detective who is now a deputy sheriff in an Arizona town and is faced with a series of baffling murders in what is normally a quite and peaceful little desert hamlet.Wilde becomes romantically involved with the daughter of towns local big shot played by Victoria Shaw who he meets while giving her a speeding ticket. Ms Shaw was married to actor Roger Smith at the time.. The father is of course hostile to the relationship, particularly when he becomes a suspect in the murders. Crusty Edgar Buchanan portrays the slow moving sheriff who is occupied in a feud with the county prosecutor regarding the crimes. Mickey Shaughnessy plays Scotty O'Brien who owns the town's only tavern and liquor store. Scotty seems to know a lot of town secrets but like all good bartenders he is very discreet.Of course the Canyon is as much a star in the film as any of the actors and Siegel gets a marvelous performance from the river and the gorge.From the jaw dropping beginning to the heart pounding climax, the Canyon is the real star. Siegel favorites Jack Elam and Dabbs Greer have red herring roles. Seek this one out you will be glade you did.