Alan Hale Jr.

In *Hang 'Em High*, the story begins with Jed Cooper, a former lawman, as he drives a herd of cattle across the Oklahoma Territory. His character is demonstrated as he saves a foundering calf from drowning. Suddenly, he is surrounded by a posse led by the vindictive Captain Wilson. The posse accuses Cooper of murder and cattle theft, refusing to believe his protests or examine the bill of sale he presents as proof of his innocence. Swiftly and mercilessly, they decide to lynch him. The men string him up on a tree and leave him to die, abandoning him as a symbol of their rough brand of frontier justice. Yet Cooper's fate takes an unexpected turn when he is found, still barely alive, by U.S. Marshal Dave Bliss. The marshal rescues him, cuts him down, and brings him to Fort Grant, where Cooper is determined to clear his name. At Fort Grant, Cooper appears before Judge Adam Fenton, the sole judge in the territory, known for his firm, no-nonsense approach to upholding law and order. After reviewing the facts and realizing Cooper's innocence, Judge Fenton releases him. However, rather than dismissing Cooper's grievances, Fenton sees an opportunity to recruit him as a deputy U.S. marshal, noting his skill and resilience. Fenton offers Cooper a badge and a mandate to bring criminals to justice under the law, warning him against seeking personal revenge. He urges Cooper to see this as an opportunity to channel his anger constructively, by upholding legal justice in a lawless land. Cooper, still reeling from the trauma of his near-death experience, reluctantly agrees, setting his sights on capturing the men responsible-not out of vengeance, he insists, but to see justice served. Cooper's journey as a marshal leads him across rugged terrain and into dangerous encounters as he pursues the members of the posse who wronged him. He arrests several criminals along the way, grappling with the ethical complexities of frontier justice. Some of the posse members beg for mercy, claiming they acted out of fear, while others remain defiant. His encounters reveal the fragility of law in a place where vigilante justice often prevails. At each step, Cooper is forced to confront his own sense of morality and the fine line between justice and revenge. Although tempted by the thought of exacting personal retribution, he remains committed to his role as a marshal, bringing each man in to face a trial. The tension escalates as Cooper confronts Captain Wilson and the last of his lynchers. The final showdown embodies the central conflict of the film, exploring whether true justice can ever be served in a place where life is cheap and justice often subjective. Cooper's dedication to upholding the law, despite his personal vendetta, ultimately underscores the film's message about the cost of revenge and the harsh, often flawed nature of frontier justice. In the end, *Hang 'Em High* delivers a powerful meditation on the themes of justice, morality, and the toll of vengeance. Cooper's journey is not just one of survival but of reckoning with the violent world he inhabits, as he chooses to abide by the law even when tempted to forsake it. His choice marks him as a figure of integrity in a world where such values are rare, leaving the audience with a nuanced perspective on what justice truly means in the unforgiving landscape of the American West.

A gunfighter's main hope lies in the trust of a beautiful woman who hides him out when he is wrongly suspected of a stagecoach massacre. A gunfighter, stranded in the desert, comes across the aftermath of a stage robbery, in which all the passengers were killed. He takes one of the horses to ride to town to report the massacre, but finds himself accused of it. He also finds himself accused of the murder of the local banker, and winds up hiding in the basement of a house where the local sheriff, who is very sick, lives with his daughter. —frankfob2@yahoo.com

The life of the youngest of three sisters in a musical family is complicated by the separate arrivals of a charming composer and a cynical music arranger. When Alex enters the lives of the musical Tuttle family, all three daughters fall for him. He is charming, good-looking, and personable. Laurie and Alex seem to be made for each other, and they become engaged. When Barney comes into the picture to help Alex with some musical arrangements, matters become complicated. Laurie sees him as a challenge; she can't believe anyone could be as cynical as he is, and she is more than a match for his gloomy outlook on life. —Ron Kerrigan <mvg@whidbey.com> Gregory Tuttle is the Dean of a music foundation in a coastal town in Connecticut. He has passed on his love of music to his three young-adult daughters Amy, Fran, and Laurie, who live with him and his spinster sister, the girls' Aunt Jessie. Gregory and his daughters often rehearse together as a musical quartet. The girls support one another however they can, but each is an individual with her own distinct personality and wants, including ideal-husband wishlists. After only seven dates, Fran becomes engaged to developer Bob Neary, a man with prospects and wealth aspirations which match Fran's own. After Fran and Bob's announcement, Laurie and Amy vow to be spinster sisters together, despite practical but deep-in-her-heart romantic Amy's long courtship by unassuming plumber Ernie Nichols, who dotes on her. Only fun-loving Laurie truly believes that she will never marry. Their collective lives change with the entry into their lives of two men. The first is Gregory's old friend's son, composer Alex Burke, who is in the process of writing the songs and incidental music for a Broadway musical. He easily gets a job at the foundation using his natural and sincere charm which he applies to all equally, those charms which he also uses to get temporary lodging at the Tuttle home while he spends most of his time writing. Many women misconstrue that charm for romantic interest. The second is Alex's orchestrator and arranger, Barney Sloan. Barney has a chip on his shoulders about what life has dealt him, which he uses in turn as a reason for living a reckless life. The two men make each of the three daughters re-examine what she thinks she wants in life, or more precisely who she wants, which for all may be the same person, and affects what all three end up doing in their romantic lives. —Huggo

After the Zeta Fraternity at Quinceton University publicizes their musical show, in which all the young men are impersonating chorus girls, Mar Brynn Horticultural School for Girls publicist Hap Holden tries to convince university president Matilda Collinge, that she needs a similar publicity stunt to draw more students to her school. Matilda is appalled by the undignified fraternity show, but urged on by her niece Virginia, she agrees to give away scholarships to twelve beauty queens with horticultural titles, such as "The Tomato Queen" and "The Pumpkin Queen," and call them "the girls most likely to succeed." As a way of drawing attention to the scheme, Virginia writes an article for the Quinceton paper in which she calls the Zeta Fraternity the "boys least likely to succeed." After announcing that the Zeta men have been barred from Mar Brynn, she then calls for festival queens to apply for the scholarships. Offended by the article, the fraternity decides to draw lots to send one of them to apply for the scholarship. Wrestling champion Bob Sheppard is tricked into winning, and reluctantly submits a photograph of himself dressed as "Bobbie DeWolfe--Queen of the Flowers." Bob wins a scholarship and reluctantly boards the special train headed for the university, where he is to fulfill his fraternity's wish to humiliate Matilda. Once at Mar Brynn, Bob, dressed as "Bobbie," gets a room to himself because Matilda assumes that his hoarse voice is due to illness. After he accidentally sends his own clothes down the laundry chute, he secretly steals them back from the laundry woman, who thinks the place is haunted and quits. Bob falls in love at first sight with Virginia, who introduces herself to him because they were supposed to have been roommates. Virginia invites "Bobbie" to a secret sing-along outside the chapel that night, and Bob goes dressed as himself and hides in a nearby corridor. While there, he accidentally pulls on the chapel bell rope, then is afraid to let go because the ringing bell would awaken the university. Introducing himself as a friend of "Bobbie," Bob tricks Virginia into holding the bell rope and kisses her. Bob later calls his fraternity brothers intending to cancel their ruse because he has fallen in love with Virginia. As he hangs up the phone, Virginia comes into the room and when she sees "Bobbie's" dress on a chair, she assumes that Bob is double-dating. Later, one of the new students, Bunny, comes down with the measles and the entire college is placed in quarantine. Matilda and Holden lose heart because they believe this means they will have to cancel the musical they have planned, which Bob is directing. Bob suggests that they perform inside the greenhouse, while the guests observe from outside. Slinky and Tiny, two farmer fraternity boys from a nearby university, are sent by Bob's fraternity to roughhouse him into sticking with their plan, but fail to identify him because they only see him when he is dressed as "Bobbie." On the day of the show, Bob walks through the hothouse and nearly loses his wig when it catches on a plant. Virginia sees this and is relieved because she now knows that Bob and "Bobbie" are the same person. Holden and Matilda, however, are furious that they have been duped, but are too busy to do anything about it because they are chasing Bunny, who has escaped quarantine. Slinky and Tiny at last recognize Bob, but he eludes them and dresses Bunny in "Bobbie's" costume. Slinky and Tiny capture Bunny, and Bob confesses to Virginia. The show goes successfully, and Bob pays tribute to the fraternity by having the Mar Brynn girls spell out "Zeta" Busby Berkeley-style at the end. A picture of the stunt is published in the newspapers, and Bob gets his girl after all.