Earlier today, I was searching for an old Johnny Mack Brown Western called Fronteir Agent.  I found a video on YouTube that claimed to be an upload of Frontier Agent but, when I started watching it, I discovered that the movie, while a western, was definitely not a Johnny Mack Brown programmer.  Instead, it was a movie called Relentless and it was about as different from Johnny Mack Brown’s cheery B-westerns as you could get.

Robert Young plays Nick Buckley, a drifter who is more comfortable riding the range than spending time with “civilzation.”  He rides into town on a rainy night, looking for shelter for him both him and his pregnant mare.  At the local saloon, two prospectors invite him to stay at their cabin for the night.  Another man, Tex (Barton MacLane), suggests that Nick and his mare should instead stay in Tex’s stables.  Tex isn’t just being altruistic.  He and Jim (Frank Fenton) murder the prospectors at their cabin and steal their map to a gold mine.  Tex then kills Jim and frames Nick for all three of the murders.  The entire town wants to either hang Nick or turn him in for the reward or force him to draw the map that they think he killed the prospectors for.  Only the owner of the traveling general store, Luella (Marguerite Chapman), believes Nick when he says that he’s been framed.

Dark and moody, Relentless is almost as much of a film noir as a western.  At first, Robert Young seems like a strange choice to play a drifter but he actually does a good job of showing how Nick is someone who has spent so much time on the frontier that he’s not really sure how to deal with civilization.  One reason that Tex is able to frame Nick is because Nick is a stranger.  He has no history and, at first, his main concerns seems to be taking care of his mare and her foal.  Nick was unlucky enough to ride into town at the wrong time and soon, he’s worth more dead than alive.  Nick’s quest to both clear his name and get revenge becomes an obsession (you might even call it relentless) and it takes him from the town to a barren desert.

One thing that sets this western apart from so many others is the relationship between Nick and Louella.  Louella is also a loner but, as a store owner, she’s accepted by the town in a way that Nick is not.  Louella and Nick come across as two mature people who have been hardened by life in the old west but who still haven’t surrendered their morals to greed like so many other characters in the movie.

Relentless is a superior western, featuring good acting and interesting characters.  I may never find Frontier Agent but I’m glad I found Relentless.