Heralded as the first western noir, which is appropriate given the subject matter, the voiceover narration by Mitchum, and predominance of scenes shot at night with sharp chiaroscuro. Another reviewer called this Wuthering Prairies since the troubled romance between Jeb Rand (Mitchum) and Thorley "Thor" Callum (Teresa Wright) evokes the 1939 film featuring Olivier & Oberon. Even the actors' wardrobe and the exteriors where the two meet up in the beginning and face the climax is reminiscent of the Wuthering Heights moors. Yet nothing is imitative here. Raoul Walsh's direction with screenplay by Niven Busch produces something totally unique in the western canon. Walsh is said to be directly influenced by Orson Welles in how he uses camera, shadows, and light. The film really is underrated by any metric. I can't think of a single western with a similar story, dark themes, and melodrama heightened outside of Anthony Mann's oeuvre. There's almost no gunplay or typical western tropes. Most of the film is told in flashback with the setup being Mitchum is hiding away in a burned out house when his lover Teresa Wright finds him there. We get a sense that much has happened between these two. The overarching theme of the film is about an inescapable blood feud. It works well in a western, but this story could have been adapted for any place or era. It has timeless, universal themes and human emotions.

To catch us up to speed, Mitchum goes back to the beginning and tells his life story. He is a man bound to his tragic fate, his family name "Rand" associated with a feud between the Callums that nearly wiped out his bloodline. Mitchum recounts his entire life by flashback, in which we see him trying to piece together buried memories of what happened one fateful day as a child when he was hiding in the floorboards of a house. He has flashes of cowboy spurs dancing about, beautifully superimposed on film through some special effect. This is all he recalls and these spurs will be an idee fixe. After the massacre, he was found and raised by Mrs. Callum (Judith Anderson), a widow with a daughter and son. Mitchum is brought up like a son, although he suspects things are not quite right from an early age when somebody tries to shoot him in the country. Mrs. Callum suspects and confronts her brother-in-law, Grant since he promised to kill all the Rands. The intricacies of the plot as far as Mrs. Callum's involvement and who all these people are in the feud is murky. What is known is that Mitchum's father was having an affair with Mrs. Callum, the father then killed her husband--Grant's brother--and Grant in turn sought revenge. Grant's arm was so badly shot during the attack that he lost it and we see him throughout the film with a dangling sleeve. Grant agrees to end the feud against this last Rand. It's a gesture of perverse curiosity to see how bad the blood feud runs and whether Mitchum will turn on her eventually. There's a theme of Montagues & Capulets here with a tainted bloodline.

Another flashback explores Mitchum's young adult relationships with his step siblings. Despite growing up together as seeming brother and sister, Mitchum and Wright are lovers, a fact that the brother, Adam, resents. Suggestions of incest abound from multiple directions: is Adam jealous for his sister? Mitchum is sent off to fight in the Spanish-American war, returns a decorated hero, and we see his increasing paranoia and disassociation as he tries to remember his past. He finds the old burned out Rand house and struggles to recover his memory. Back at the ranch, he has an argument with Adam who has been putting aside Mitchum's share of ranch profits while he was at war. Mitchum loses another coin toss (the first one was to decide which of the brothers would go off to war) and agrees to leave the ranch. They have a fist fight and Mitchum threatens to kill him before going into town and winning big at a casino, which results in the owner offering a business partnership. Later Mitchum is riding out in the frontier and another man on horseback in the distance is seen trailing him. When the mysterious rider gets off his horse and snipes from a cliff, Mitchum returns fire and kills the man, who turns out to be Adam. Although acquitted of the murder, Mrs. Callum and Wright despise and shun him now. Mitchum, rudderless and homeless, has no choice but to accept partnership of the casino.

As times passes we see Wright courted by and engaged to Prentice (Harry Carey, Jr.). Mitchum has been estranged from the Callums for a while and finds them at a party where he boldly presses Wright for a dance. Grant is in attendance and sees Prentice's anger, so he encourages him to defend Wright's honor, even lending him a pistol to kill Mitchum. Outside in the streets Prentice sneaks up on Mitchum and starts shooting, and once again Mitchum kills another man in self-defense. We've seen a real dark and tragic tone build up now and the once sprightly and loving relationship between Mrs. Callum, Wright and Mitchum is frayed by cold hatred. Wright and Mrs. Callum concoct a scheme to take revenge on Mitchum. Wright pretends to forgive Mitchum and marries him, with the intent to murder him on their wedding night with a pistol. We see her in very noir fashion prepare to do the deed, but Mitchum is a step ahead and goads her into doing it. She cannot, and in a sudden change of heart, realizes she does love him and they reconcile. We exit the flashbacks to where the film began, showing an infatuated and devoted Wright now willing to go anywhere with Mitchum; very Wuthering Heights in the fluctuations of loathing and loving.

Grant Callum organizes a posse to find Mitchum and finish what he started by eradicating the Rand bloodline. He corners Mitchum in the burned out house and a gunfight erupts. Meanwhile Mitchum has finally pieced together the fragments of his memory and remembers what happened when his father and siblings were murdered. It was Grant who did the killing, and Mrs. Callum was with him. Her affair with Mitchum's father was discovered by her husband, who tries to kill the father but is killed instead. The husband was Grant's brother. This put in motion his vendetta against the Rand family. Mitchum surrenders himself to Grant's men and is about to be hanged when Mrs. Callum rides up in a wagon. Wright begs her to do something to stop the lynching and Mrs. Callum shoots Grant. There is a reconciliation between mother and daughter and adopted son, ending the film.

A happy ending is quite out of sync with noir tradition. Everything is tied up neatly. Before all this, I had no idea where we were going. It was a turbulent melodrama with redemption off the plate and a somber inevitability emanating all over. The relationship between adopted son and mother was so powerful and to see it destroyed because he innocently killed Adam without knowing who he was shooting at really brought home a tragic element of destiny here that Mitchum couldn't escape. As a Rand he was tainted and incompatible with the Callums. Although sad and bewildering to see the sudden change in heart from love to hate, the film does an adequate job making it convincing. We sympathize with Mitchum at every step. He is good at heart. All the pain and conflict he brings is by accident or misunderstanding. The noir elements are strong, the acting supremely first-rate, the story quite intricate and multi-layered, and Mitchum's tortured journey as he struggles to understand his own identity and deal with trauma is way ahead of its time.