"Baby Face" director Alfred E. Green helmed this beautifully lensed but lame oater. This early Audie Murphy western isn't one to remember. Wanda Hendrix is spunky enough as the heroine, and Robert Rober makes an acceptably obnoxious villain. Murphy plays a callow young cowboy named Ring Hassard who dwells with his dad way back in the mountains. Murphy's father Jeff (Dean Jagger of "Bad Day at Black Rock") was wrongly accused of a homicide that he didn't commit years ago. Now, Jeff lives in a sort of self-imposed exile with his fast-drawing son. Nobody can find the Hassard camp tucked as it is far back in the mountains with only a stream threading through the towering rocks to follow. One day, an impetuous young girl, Riley (Wanda Hendrix), sets out to find a quaint character nick-named Lonesome (Burl Ives) who warbles songs on horseback while he strums his guitar. Riley loses her horse, and Ring finds her. He takes her back to his camp. Later, after she loses another horse, Riley realizes she maybe stuck with Ring and his father longer than she wants. She has been gone for about three days. The Hassards are short a horse so the elder Hassard decides to break a bronc for her to ride. The steed throws Jeff and drags the poor guy around the corral before Ring can rescue him. Once Ring has his father back to their camp and in a bed, Lonesome rides up and recommends that Ring fetch a doctor. Ring plans to pay for the doctor with his maverick hores, but Big Matt Rango (Robert Rober of "Port of New York") steals Ring's horses. Eventually, Ring takes Riley back to Sierra. Along the way, Riley is bitten by a rattlesnake. Since he doesn't have a sharp enough knife, Ring shoots Riley. Everybody is overjoyed when Ring arrives in town with Riley. Meantime, Ring and Lonesome try to recover the horses that Big Matt appropriated from them. Big Matt and his gunmen capture Ring and put him in jail. The punishment for rustling horses is hanging. Ring has nobody to represent him. Riley steps in to defend Ring. Incredibly, Lonesome serenades the town marshal's deputy and gets the keys to open Ring's jail. As it turns out, Jeff Hassard was actually innocent of the crime. "Sierra" is nothing special.
