On DVD - A note from Noel Bjorndahl on Raoul Walsh's COLORADO TERRITORY

I've just re-visited one of Director Raoul Walsh's powerhouse Westerns Colorado Territory (1949), a wonderfully noirish remake of his earlier treatment of similar subject matter in the Gangster film High Sierra (USA, 1941) with Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart and Joan Leslie. The Director's use of towering landscapes in the later film, however, for me give it a special edge as Joel McCrea and Virginia Mayo (looking superbly exotic) race to their doom. They are shot down together in the unremitting landscape while an early use of a zoom lense captures their demise with enormous physical impact. Surely a masterpiece. 

Viewed on a Warner Bros Archive disc published in 2008.