Ride Clear of Diablo (1954)

What’s better than an Audie Murphy western? How about an Audie Murphy western with Dan Duryea thrown in as a bonus? That’s what Universal-International’s 1954 Ride Clear of Diablo offers.

It starts with cattle rustling, which leaves a rancher named O’Mara and his son dead. O’Mara’s other son Clay (Audie Murphy) arrives from Denver to find the men who killed his family.

Clay persuades the local sheriff to deputise him. Clay wants to do some investigating. What he doesn’t know is that he’s being set up. He’s been advised to ride to Diablo to talk to a man named Whitey Kincade (Dan Duryea). In fact he’s been told to arrest Kincade on a murder charge.

The idea of the setup is that Whitey Kincade, a noted gunslinger, will surely kill Clay. The sheriff and the O’Mara family lawyer want Clay out of the way.

It should have been a fool-proof plan. Clay is an innocent youngster. He comes across as someone more suited to teaching Sunday school than taking on hardened gunmen. There’s just one flaw to the plan. Clay really is an innocent, but he’s also the fastest gun you ever saw and he’s one tough hombre when it comes to fistfights. Clay has no problem bringing in Whitey, much to the consternation of the sheriff and his accomplices.

Whitey is a bad guy and he’s a killer but he’s likeable. He takes a liking to Clay, and Clay gradually decides that Whitey isn’t so bad after all.

The plot of the movie is mostly concerned with Clay’s fruitless attempts to find his family’s killers. The attempts are fruitless because people he trusts keep feeding him false information.

People he trusts also keep trying to arrange to have him killed.

The audience knows from the beginning what is going on, and knows the identity of the killers. The suspense comes from the fact that Clay has no idea what’s going on and as a result he’s in constant danger.

Dan Duryea steals every scene he’s in. It’s am amusing totally over-the-top performance, even by Dan Duryea standards. Whitey is the most interesting character in the movie because he’s the only ambiguous character. He might turn out to be one of the good guys or one of the bad guys.

Audie Murphy is, as usual, very good.

Susan Cabot is reasonably good as the sheriff’s niece. She’s the love interest for Clay, with the complication that her uncle wants Clay dead although Clay hasn’t figured that out. Abbe Lane is fun as saloon girl Kate. She’s a bad girl, but she’s not evil.

Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea work beautifully together, with Murphy very understated while Duryea chews every piece of scenery he can get his hands on. They manage to make an unlikely friendship seem believable.

The supporting cast is adequate but this movie really badly needed a more memorable villain. All the villains are a bit on the colourless side.

Director Jesse Hibbs ended up working mostly in television but he did helm a later Audie Murphy movie, the excellent Ride a Crooked Trail. Ride Clear of Diablo isn’t quite as good. Don’t expect any spectacular visuals.

The 101 Films DVD is barebones but the transfer is pretty decent. The colours look OK.

Ride Clear of Diablo is really just a stock-standard competently made B-western with a revenge theme but Murphy and Duryea make it worth watching. It moves along quickly and there are some decent action scenes. Recommended for western fans.