There's enough of a story line and quite enough action to lift this Western above the average B programmer, but as another reviewer on this board points out, this one's not going to make it as a main eventer. What you have is a broad outline of the arguments, pro and con, of Texas becoming a part of the United States. Set in 1945 with Texas facing annexation, elements arise to conspire against that eventuality, with power brokers, led by Tom Craden (Broderick Crawford), attempting to set up their own Republic - "Why should we give up an empire just for statehood"?

For purposes of history, Clark Gable's character Deveraux Burke winds up on the right side of the story, but it's made fairly clear he's in it for personal gain as much as Craden is for his side. Between the two frontiersmen stands Martha Ronda (Ava Gardner), a journalist who seems to take on the character of her newspaper as the Austin Blade.

History buffs will likely relate to the character of Andrew Jackson, portrayed here by Lionel Barrymore. Pro-Union as they come, I was left scratching my head trying to figure out how his housekeeper Minnie (Beulah Bondi) beat Dev Burke to Austin. And for all of the emphasis given to Sam Houston's (Moroni Olsen) importance in deciding which way Texas would go, the character has only a minor on-screen presence in the story.

With all that, the picture is fairly watchable with a good mix of action, adventure, and the inevitable romantic entanglement among the principals - Gable, Gardner and Crawford. Others on this board have expressed a necessary suspension of disbelief with the conclusion to the story, but what the heck, haven't we seen that before?