Cal Wayne (Bobby Darin) returns home from the Civil War a broken man, haunted and afraid to strap on a gun because he had mistakenly killed his friend. Upon return, he finds that his dead friend's brother, Grant Evers (Leslie Nielsen) has taken over the town with the help of a bullying sheriff, and is engaged to marry the woman Cal loves. With a supporting role by Michael Sarrazin in his big screen debut as a kind-hearted rancher who is flogged by the evil sheriff while returning a stray calf, and eventually dies from the beating (triggering the violent series of confrontations that ends the movie).

The plot of this movie, while following a tried and true formula, does introduce some interesting twists and turns. However, Bobby Darin was a poor fit for the role. One inescapably concludes that Universal was trying him out in the western lead role, and he obviously failed as it was his only western.

Darin's acting seemed forced, his scrawny frame swaggering around with an exaggerated chest-out, shoulders-back posture. His fight scenes with larger men were so forced and obviously scripted that they come off as feeble. His acting was a series of attempts to over-emphasize every word with uncomfortable pregnant pauses while we study his face in close-up. It's all rather bizarre. Even more bizarrely, he wears black leather gloves throughout the entire movie, and appears uncomfortable doing so, constantly tugging at them. Perhaps they were hiding small hands. Who knows, but they stuck out like a sore thumb (no pun intended). He clearly did not belong in this role. Watching him in this movie felt more like watching a low-grade soap opera.

But along comes Leslie Nielsen with another brilliant performance to save the day (barely). Leslie's acting, as always, is smooth and professional and realistic. He plays someone who sits atop an empire with an evil sheriff supporting his power play, emanating barely perceptible evilness. But he also plays a good guy who helps Darin's return to his hometown by giving him back his old job as sheriff, and he doesn't try to force himself on Darin's former girlfriend even though he is engaged to marry her. At one point he even offers to postpone the wedding because he knows he doesn't have her heart. This is one of the interesting plot twists, that Nielsen's character generously offers to give up the girl because he knows she is really in love with Darin's character.

But even Nielsen's film-saving performance and Michael Sarrazin's supporting and sympathetic role in his first appearance on the big screen aren't enough to salvage Bobby Darin's attempt at a leading western man. At times he appears to be trying to emulate Dean Martin in appearance and manner, but fails miserably. Barely made a 6-star rating in my book, and only because of Nielsen and Sarrazin.

Bobby Darin looks so goofy in this movie that seeing Leslie Nielsen as a grim and malevolent land baron makes this movie even funnier.

Bobby Darin has a nice personality, but he looks 100% ethnic New Yorker, and I doubt he could ride a horse. This is not a bad movie, except that it does not make any sense. It is just the kind of movie that was put together and nobody bothered to check if the plot made any sense, or if the dialogue made any sense. Just a passable B movie.

The horrible song, Amy, makes it even worse. The movie was all about Bobby Darin and his guilt over killing Nielsen's brother. The song is about Amy, who plays second fiddle to the broken friendship between Darin and Nielsen. Just another part of the story that is awkward.

Are you kidding me - Bobby Darin - in a Western? I would have lost that bet big time. But you know what, he wasn't that bad. There were a few times I thought he was over-acting the role but in general a credible job. One problem though, was his casting as a baby face in the starring hero role. Like Audie Murphy, the matinée good looks don't always work when going up against the town bully or a gnarly gunslinger like Joe Slade (Donnelly Rhodes). Not only that, but when sized up against some of the other players, he was pretty much on the small side.

But all in all, the story was pretty good. Now Leslie Nielsen - I guess I've seen him too many times in Airplane and Police Squad pictures to take him seriously in a dramatic role. So with that club hand of his, injured by Cal Wayne (Darin) when they were youngsters, it looked like a caricature and any minute I was expecting the kind of treatment we got from Kenneth Mars as the inspector in "Young Frankenstein". It came pretty close at one point too, when he started banging the hand on the back of a chair, but that was it. You have to admit though, Nielsen's character Grant Evers looked pretty fast on the draw for a cripple. It would have been something if the final showdown was between him and Cal.

You know who got the short end of the stick here though, don't you? After all her fussing over Cal, Leann (Barbara Werle) got broomed so quickly she didn't even show up at the end of the picture. She could at least have gotten eighteen yellow roses for her trouble.