Day Of The Outlaw casts Robert Ryan as a tough westerner who resents the homesteaders like Alan Marshal fencing off the open range. But in Marshal's case, he's got other resents going as well since he's married to Tina Louise who once had a fling with him. He has every intention of doing something about it legally or illegally and who's to question in this remote rugged high country in a town that's barely twenty or so people.

But when Burl Ives and a murderous pack of outlaws ride into town and take it over to provision up because the US Cavalry is chasing them, Ryan, Marshal, Louise and everyone else is in the same boat. Imagine if you will Ives's Rufus Hannessy from The Big Country leading a gang of outlaws and you see what the town is up against. The only one not a killer is young David Nelson of the group.

Ives has an additional problem, a bullet in his chest and the only doctor around is a veterinarian, Dabbs Greer. He gets the bullet out, but Ives would need proper medical care in a hospital to recover and to guard against internal bleeding. That's what slowly killing him, despite the morphine Greer is loading him up with.

That part of the story is absolutely the true. Around this same period President William McKinley was shot in Buffalo and was thought to be recovering at first. But even he did not get adequate medical care and took a turn for the worse and a week later, died.

Andre DeToth who did many good and rugged westerns did this grim tale set in the west during the winter. It looks like good skiing country, but this ain't no winter paradise for anyone concerned.