Rancho Notorious

The last of Fritz Lang's three westerns, following THE RETURN OF JESSE JAMES and WESTERN UNION, RANCHO NOTORIOUS is a bizarre, strangely poetic, and highly personal ballad of a man transformed by revenge. Kennedy plays cowhand Vern Haskell who, at the film's opening, is flirting with his fiancee (Henry), who works at the general store. Soon afterwards, two outlaws hold up the store, and when Vern returns, he learns that the woman "wasn't spared anything." Vern begins a quest for revenge and eventually finds one of the killers, shot in the back by the other. The man's last words point him toward a criminal hideout, a ranch run by former barroom singer Altar Keane (D...