Residents of a lawless, three-horse town in the Old West are paralyzed with fear after psychopathic stranger Aldo Ray arrives and starts shooting people and setting fires; time passes, and lawyer turned mayor Henry Fonda helps rebuild what's left of the community, but when Ray returns, Fonda has to confront his own fear and morality. Although the story sounds promising, this cheapjack execution is not, and Ray (despite some cackling) has really no character to play and no dialogue. Lots of familiar western-movie faces in the cast, but the characters are clichés and cut-outs, and the melodramatic plotting is only useful for unintended laughs. Janice Rule plays a traumatized saloon hostess with an Irish brogue that comes and goes, and poor Lon Chaney (Jr.) has a miserable excuse for a role as an alcoholic bartender. Henry Fonda is stalwart, as usual, but the surroundings have no atmosphere and Burt Kennedy's direction has absolutely no artistry (he points the camera and shoots). Some incidentals in the theme bring to mind the later "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean", but that film was much more ambitious and engrossing than this extremely modest underachiever. * from ****