Nevada (1944)

“Nevada” (Bob Mitchum] rescues “Julie” (Anne Jeffreys) from a grizzly fate and she warns him that the town they are both travelling to isn’t a lot friendlier. He arrives and soon finds that is too true as he is arrested for a murder and a robbery. She tries to intercede for him with the fair-minded sheriff but when a lynch mob breaks into the jail he has to skedaddle and think on his feet to track down the real culprit and, with the help of an alchemist, find out just what is going on in this remote prospecting town. Now we know all along who is pulling the strings so there’s not oodles of jeopardy here, but that said - Mitchum delivers quite well here as the decent cowboy embroiled in a battle of wits with a shrewd and greedy man who has designs not just on the town, but on “Julie” too. Jeffreys also delivers more strongly giving her character a little more oomph than was more common for the leading lady in these once-a-week procedural westerns. We even get a jolly ditty from his pal “Dusty” (Guinn Williams) and it’s quite entertainingly paced for an hour of fairly action-packed drama.