Stranger on the Run

Former inmate and alcoholic Ben Chamberlain (Fonda) comes to a railway town enquiring about a woman, of whom all seem afraid to speak; he receives a beating just for asking. Chamberlain braves the threats and calls at her house; he discovers her strewn, beaten dead body. The sheriff and his posse of local thuggish enforcers, incorrectly assuming that Chamberlain is the culprit because he left town without reason, form a posse. Although they catch him in the desert, the sheriff prevents his being lynched and gives him a horse and a head-start chance to reach the border. Chamberlain meets a lonely, widowed homesteader (Baxter), a woman whose troubles also include a son who aspires to be a gunman, but does not have the steely nature it takes. Chamberlain and she start to develop a mutual attraction, but this is interrupted when the posse arrives.

Both her son and the town need a new beginning in life. If the two can survive a 20-minute gunfight before the sheriff arrives, then all may be given their last chance in life.

• Henry Fonda as Ben Chamberlain
• Anne Baxter as Valvera Johnson
• Michael Parks as Vince McKay
• Dan Duryea as O.E. Hotchkiss
• Sal Mineo as George Blaylock
• Lloyd Bochner as Mr. Gorman
• Michael Burns as Matt Johnson
• Tom Reese as Leo Weed
• Bernie Hamilton as Dickory
• Zalman King as Larkin
• Madlyn Rhue as Alma Britten
• Walter Burke as Abraham Berk
• Rodolfo Acosta as Mercurio
• George Dunn as Pilney
• Pepe Hern as Manolo

Quentin Tarantino called it Siegel's best western after Flaming Star. He stated "even though it has the Universal TV look of a The Virginian episode, it has, after Andy Robinson's performance as Scorpio in Dirty Harry, the best performance in a Siegel film. Michael Parks as stoic, resilient, walrus-mustached sheriff Vince McKay."[1]

• Stranger on the Run at IMDb
• Stranger on the Run at Letterboxd