Glenn Ford and William Holden, two of my favorites, first met while making Texas (1941) together, and quickly became best friends for life. Their only other joint film project was an interesting entry in the growing “psychological Western” category, The Man from Colorado (1948), in which Ford is effectively cast against type as an Army Colonel turned Federal Judge whose PTSD from the Civil War has given him sadistic inclinations.

The thematically rich screenplay, centering on disputed mining claims, does unfortunately suffer from the sort of typical mechanical problem that goes like this: We need Scene A and later we need Scene B, but to get from A to B we need to introduce a preposterous coincidence, or unbelievable plot development or twist, or someone acting out of character. The story does not proceed in an organic way. Holden’s character, the judge’s best friend and right-hand man, bears the brunt of the improbabilities, switching from lawman to criminal back to lawman, and at one point stupidly taking a bait even when he is told it’s stupid to do so.

Ah well, such is Hollywood. But as the story becomes more improbable it also becomes more operatic in tone, with a payoff in a literally blazing finale reminiscent of James Cagney’s send-off in White Heat. In both movies, the final conflagration externalizes the storms in the sick man’s mind.