Sierra (1950)

 

SIERRA (1950)

By Ralph Santini - **

                “Sierra” is another hopelessly routine but good-looking Technicolor western from Universal Studios were everything involves wanted men for crimes they didn’t commit versus a vindictive posse that would stop at nothing to hang them. The far-fetched story, witlessly written by Edna Anhalt, involves Audie Muprhy and Dean Jagger as two men who encounter a young female lawyer (annoyingly portrayed by Wanda Hendrix who wouldn’t be quiet every time it’s her turn to say a line) who suspects that something is not right concerning their guilt in the eyes of justice. She even overhears the innocence Jagger insinuates to Murphy after being injured thrown off an extremely wild horse.

He later calls a faithful and loveable sidekick played by Burl Ives (who cannot just stop singing in all of his boring musical numbers) and he fears that Jagger needs a doctor. A few days later Hendrix is bitten a poisonous snake and Murphy decides to shoot her arm and bring her to town. Things don’t go right however when a band of vindictive horse thieves steal from Murphy and Jagger. This interrupts the young fugitive from trying to save his father by an attempt to sell all of them so he can get money for a doctor to cure his father.

This is where the conflict comes in and believe me the movie does not get any more flaccid than this with one annoying scene after another where Murphy tries to fight for his and Jagger’s innocence. As a result, there is not much to like about “Sierra” except the film’s glorious Technicolor photography shot in the High Sierras of Kanab in Utah. Hendrix is insanely miscast, Ives sings his slow songs too redundantly and the conflict in this script is no better than familiar.  Murphy is likeable enough in one of his earlier western roles for Universal but the film falls flat.