**spoilers** about 'Perry Mason' moment at end

I always wondered about that myself. Of course, Hubble might have been "helped" to make a confession when Jeff Hunter cuffed him beside his head, pulled him out of the chair, slammed him back down and screamed at him. Too bad Perry Mason wan't allowed to do that. It might have changed his hour-long show to a half-hour one.

I think Hubble yanked the chain off Lucy and absent-mindedly put it in the pocket of hi coat. I don't think he thought about his son grabbing his coat when he ran off, but gave a reasonable explanation of why all that occurred. But he still would have gotten away with it if he hadn't paniced when Jeff Hunter hit him.

Of course, the whole trial was rife with judicial errors. They were in closing arguments. No trial judge would have allowed another witness to testify at that time.

I still loved the movie, tho'. It's one of my favorites - thanks to Woody Strode.

Well, I believe the scriptwriter wanted to have a dramatic finish to the film, but I agree that the final resolution was little short of ridiculous. If you look at that scene again, Cantrell actually not only yelled but physically assaulted Hubble violently to force a confession out of him. He was acting like Dirty Harry, but during a court session and in full view of the public! If Hubble did not break down and confess his guilt, Cantrell would have been in a lot of trouble.

When Cantrell came to the court, he actually had absolutely nothing to incriminate either Hubble or his son. All that had happened was that Cantrell found a dead Apache wearing a hunting coat with the initials “C.H.” which he suggested belonged to Chris Hubble and found a cross inside that he thought belonged to Lucy. As the Prosecutor Captain pointed out, there could have been a hundred explanations and were no evidence at all. Even funnier was that as a retort, the Prosecutor immediately threw out a number of crosses and challenged Cantrell to identify the one that allegedly belonged to Lucy. Did Cantrell willingly let the Prosecution know beforehand what he was going to submit as “evidence” for the court?

Then Hubble, for absolutely no reason, volunteered that he was able to identify the cross and so was unnecessarily drawn in as a witness to testify. Perhaps he did that because he did not want an innocent man to be condemned just because the vast majority of the racist public were convinced of his guilt, and so in that respect he was a “nice guy”. Unfortunately, he was also a rapist and murderer.

I thought the proof was in that the father was a much larger man and the son was found wearing a coat too large for him (with the cross in the pocket). The son, in a hurry, had grabbed the father's coat. Initially, the father was going to let his now dead son take the rap but with the issue of the coat he figured the game was up, he was bearing the load of his guilt and needed a (somewhat encouraged) catharsis.

Yeah, it was a disappointment. Everything from the 'confession' all the way through to Constance Towers and Jeffrey Hunter having their cliched ending kiss and the cavalry riding off into the distance was nauseating. It essentially whitewashed all the complexity and heart of the film. It deserved a much better conclusion.