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1951 film by William D. Russell
Best of the Badmen
is a 1951
Western
film directed by
William D. Russell
that is set in
Missouri
during the post-
American Civil War
period. It stars
Robert Ryan
,
Claire Trevor
and
Robert Preston
. It was a loose follow-up to
Return of the Bad Men
(1948).
Plot
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]
The plot centres around the
James-Younger Gang
and their activities.
Jeff Clanton, an Army major from Missouri, captures the survivors of the Confederacy's
Quantrill's Raiders
and convinces them to give themselves up and pledge their allegiance to the
Union
. Clanton pledges that they will be paroled, but Matthew Fowler, a
carpetbagger
who owns a powerful detective agency, is determined to arrest them for the reward. When one of Fowler's deputies wounds one of the captives, return fire kills the deputy. Clanton is unjustly arrested for murdering Fowler's deputy. Clanton is tried by a
kangaroo court
and sentenced to be
hanged
the following morning. He escapes that night and then leads the band of outlaws including
Jesse James
and the
Younger brothers
in a vendetta against Matthew Fowler's detective agency.
Cast
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Production
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]
Parts of the film were shot in
Paria
, Johnson Canyon, Strawberry Valley, the Gap, and
Kanab
Canyon in
Utah
.
[2]
References
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External links
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]