Controversial film for 1957

Anthony Mann crafts a classical western story, teamed here with Stagecoach screenwriter Dudley Nichols. The Tin Star is both entertaining and filled with social comment. Themes of racial prejudice, male/female roles, and violence, relevant to a 1957 theater goer, are woven into a solid storyline that builds like Zinneman's High Noon, to an inevitable showdown between sheriff Tony Perkins and town bully Neville Brand. Henry Fonda plays the bristly and jaded bounty hunter who dropped his tin star in the sand years ago, and serves as Perkins' mentor into the harsh realities of the 19th century western violence. Good drama, quality acting, and a powerful score by Elmer Bernstein, though this film, having been shot almost entirely on the Paramount back lot, lacks the wide expanses one expects in a western. Well worth watching for the western aficionado.