The Iron Sheriff

The Iron Sheriff manages to combine both western and noir elements in its making. It also is a pretty good courtroom drama.

The title role of The Iron Sheriff is played by Sterling Hayden and as you can gather he's one strict enforcer of the law. That includes arresting his son Darryl Hickman who's been identified as the perpetrator of a stage holdup where the driver was killed. Hickman's been identified by a dying I. Stanford Jolley as the perpetrator, but Jolley has it in for Hickman because he's been getting too serious with his daughter Kathleen Nolan. With all the evidence against him, still Sterling Hayden goes on a quest to find the real culprit, especially after some exculpatory evidence is found.

There's a town full of suspects and each has their own agenda for or against the sheriff, something like the divided public opinion in High Noon in Hadleyville as far as sheriff Gary Cooper was concerned. The Iron Sheriff also is a much better telling of the same kind of story that was told in the John Wayne film Cahill, US Marshall. The Duke in his movie was bound by the parameters of his image and Sterling Hayden did not have that problem.

This western has some pretty good courtroom scenes with Judge Will Wright, prosecutor Frank Ferguson, and defense attorney John Dehner who may have turned in the best performance in the film. I have to confess that I was surprised at who the culprit eventually turned out to be.

If it's run again on TCM try to catch it.