A Covenant With Death

So-so courtroom drama set in the Southwest in the 1920s stars Maharis as a Mexican-American judge deciding the case of Earl Holliman, town good-for-nothing accused of his wife's murder. Holliman scuffles on the scaffold and kills the hangman just as Whit Bissell confesses to the crime. Bissell's confession exonerates Holliman of the first slaying, but now he must be tried again for the hangman's murder. It's an interesting premise but director Lamont Johnson, helming his first feature, is unable to pull it off. Too much of the film dwells on Maharis' affairs of the heart, which involve his attraction to icy blonde Devon and fiery Latino Wagner. Jurado does a nice t...