Just what I expected

A lot of fun.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Agree with Ashew,Macready unfairly discounted in Westerns.He was definitely equal to a star like Randy Scott,and he was convincing as a Western heavy.Who else could direct a bunch of dopes to do his bidding?That he had good manners,dressed well,spoke with a commanding voice only made him more convincing as a brilliant man gone bad,perfect for any Western.This is his third movie opposite Scott,Coroner Creek when he's nastier to his wife than here,Doolins Of Oklahoma as a good lawman and the narrator,and The Stranger Wore A Gun.There's plenty of action and Dorothy Malone as Galt's daughter (pre Peyton Place for Malone and Macready)comedy with Faylen and Corey,additional menace from Tucker.I liked it!

Those who would see the Randolph Scott westerns in the fifties when originally released, would be rewarded with nice colors, more violence than in usual westerns (which would make it more dramatic) and a more mature, rugged faced Scott who combined perfectly with the other elements in the film. The more significant flaws in those films would be in the story but certainly not in this one which has a script which is conventional but good. Forrest Tucker is Tom Tanner who leaves jail and goes straight for the gold he kept. Scott is Barclay, the man that follows him. George Macready is the rancher, and Dorothy Malone is his daughter. Jeff Corey and Frank Faylen are the two brothers who are so good they are even mentioned on the New York Times original review as the best of the film. Good entertainment, and even though the film was made in 1950, it is up to the standards of today.

The Nevadan is too short and formulaic to work through all its possibilities, but if plots are the hardest parts of writing, this film had some story features that were interesting at least.First, Randolph Scott's role as an undercover marshal is carefully set up to be convincing to the characters on screen but also to tip the audience off--Tom escapes from his lawman escort and the lawman acts chastened till everyone is out of sight, then smiles. Forrest Tucker's bad-boy Tom is off for hidden gold, but Scott shows up to hang close with him, advising yet protecting Tom--if something happens to Tom, the gold's lost forever. Later, Scott strategically shares his identity with his love-interest, who blurts it to her villainous dad; then when bad dad comes after Scott and Tom, Scott informs Tom and keeps the young outlaw on his side. That had to be tough dialogue to write!Another interesting plot-feature is that all the honest characters seem to like bad-boy Tom. (I too am automatically on Forrest Tucker's side if only b/c he would later carry F Troop with Larry Storch for, what, 3 seasons?) By the end of the story, Scott has helped him survive and sent him back to a few more years of prison, but everyone acts like the busted bad boy has a future. Compared to most westerns, there's something seriously moral going on here between the hero and villain, and I don't mean the usual hero-turning-villain that later 50s westerns develop--in this case, the hero's virtue and competence somewhat redeem the villain.Third place in the story's redeeming features is the relationship between brother henchmen well played by Frank Faylen (Dobie's dad!) and Jeff Corey. The screenplay can't resolve the complicated relationships between the brothers and others, but families are like that, and both actors remain convincing.As long as the subject is acting, though, I agree with other contributors who found Dorothy Malone a radiant young actress. The film's only (inadvertently) funny moment occurs when another character addresses her love interest, the 50-something Scott, as "young man."

Unexceptional Westerns like this one almost always followed certain well-worn conventions. A few clips on the jaw and a man was unconscious. Men wore nondescript generic Western clothing, usually including a vest. The capo may have a string tie, possibly a suit, but most of the men wore neckerchiefs which were never used, as well as guns, which were. The girl friend was pure, although maybe mixed up. There was little in the way of character development and motivations were usually simple, as Galt's is here -- "gold fever", someone calls it. They were usually shot at a studio ranch or at Lone Pine or, as in this case, in both.Later in the 1950s ambitious directors like Anthony Mann introduced some life into the increasingly tired comic-book stories by giving us heroes who were neurotic and subsidiary characters with complicated motives. Other directors simply gave up trying and turned the cartoon into a parody, like one of those Steig cartoons in which a hand is seen drawing itself. Budd Boetticher was a director who gave up and reveled in the primitivism of the form.That's when Randolph Scott made the Westerns he's best known for, like "Ride Lonesome." Great title there. Scott's character was reduced to a prig, as morally upright as a gastropod on its poduncle, always putting temptation behind him, never telling a lie, rejecting offers of warmth and comfort from women -- a total bore, in other words. "The Nevadan" had the same producers as the later Boetticher films but Scott's character hadn't quite hardened into the inflexible clunk yet. He smiles here. He fibs too. He only shoots one guy, and not by outdrawing him either. It's an improvement over his later persona. But the villains aren't. Boetticher's villains were great -- Lee Marvin, Richard Boone, Pernell Roberts, James Coburn. The heavies here are not nearly as much fun. How can anyone take George MacReady seriously as a Western head heavy? He belongs in a corporation as part of a conspiracy. Faylen still sounds like the taxi driver in "Dark Passage." Ray Corey is supposed to have been a well-regarded drama teacher later on, and he gave a flawless performance in "In Cold Blood," but he brings nothing to the party here as a dull-witted joke. But the woman, Dorothy Malone, has never looked better, fresh faced, young, and innocent, as MacReady's daughter. Hollywood had a habit of glamorizing her to the point of unrecognizability. They gave her glossy hairdos, slick lips, two tons of pancake or waffle makeup, and false eyelashes the size of those canvas tarps you put up as extensions of your mobile home. She's a surprise. Nobody else in this movie is. But it's also worth mentioning Jock Mahoney as "Sandy," one of the bad guys. He was as homely as they come, but the man's physical presence was magnetic. I'm sure he didn't deliberately try for the effect but every swift movement was as graceful as a dancer's, the opposite of John Wayne who seemed to move by putting one or two limbs in motion and letting his torso follow them sometime later on. One example: watch the scene in which Malone gives Mahoney's horse a kick in the hindquarters and Mahoney finds himself splashing down into a creek, then spins the horse around and climbs the bank as if man and animal were one being, just as the Aztecs thought.