Tyrone Power in "Rawhide" (1951) -The inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" (2015)

Clean-cut Tom Owens (Tyrone Power) is the sophisticated gentleman son of J. C. Owens, who wants Tom to learn the Overland Mail Company's business from the ground up. So he sends Tom west to the Rawhide Pass remote relay station to take lessons from stationmaster Sam Todd (Edgar Buchanan).

A strong-willed woman, Vinnie Holt (Susan Hayward), is taking her young niece, Callie (Judy Dunn), to her paternal grandparents on a stagecoach heading east As her stage departs Rawhide, the U.S. Cavalry arrives from the east with the news that four convicts escaped from Huntsville prison, held up a stagecoach that had passed through Rawhide and killed the driver, who was Sam's friend. The convicts are after a gold shipment expected to pass through Rawhide the following day. The cavalry intends to escort Holt's coach on its way east, but children are not permitted to ride a coach into a dangerous situation.

Holt takes Callie to the nearby hot springs for a bath. While they are gone, a man approaches and flashes a deputy sheriff's badge from Huntsville, saying he is hunting the escaped convicts However, that man is Rafe Zimmerman (Hugh Marlowe), the convict who had escaped from Huntsville the day before his scheduled hanging. Zimmerman then signals the other three convicts to ride into town. They are hardcore outlaw Tevis (Jack Elam), simpleton Yancy (Dean Jagger) and obedient Gratz (George Tobias).

Holt and Callie hide and see Todd shot in the back by Tevis. They are discovered when Callie cries, but the convicts all assume that Holt is Owens' wife. They need an official from the company there when the last coach passes, to assure the cavalry that all is well, and the best way to convince Owens to do this is to leave his wife and baby alive.

The last coach passes. Dawn comes. Callie escapes. Fearing for Callie's safety, Holt screams to be let out of the room. When Tevis opens the door, he forces himself on Holt. Owens tries to come to her aid, but is knocked out by Zimmerman, and Tevis shoots him in the back. Gratz is also gunned down by Tevis while Yancy flees into hiding.

Owens is shot, and is then engaged in a gunfight with Tevis. Callie wanders back into the yard. Holt is able to recover Gratz's rifle and saves Owens by killing Tevis. The gold-filled stagecoach then rides in with Yancy aboard. When asked what has happened, Owens replies to the stage driver, "Learning the business, Jim. Just learning the business."

A 1951 Black & White Western romantic drama film (A/K/A "Desperate Siege") directed by Henry Hathaway, produced by Samuel G. Engel, written by Dudley Nichols, cinematography was by Milton R. Krasner, starring Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Hugh Marlowe, Dean Jagger, Edgar Buchanan, Jack Elam, George Tobias, Jeff Corey, James Millican, Louis Jean Heydt, and Judy Ann Dunn. Released by Twentieth Century-Fox.

This was Susan Hayward's first film for 20th Century-Fox after Walter Wanger sold her contract to the studio.

Everett Sloane was originally cast as Tevis. However, Susan Hayward complained about Sloane's roughness in a scene in which he threw her to the floor, and he was replaced by Jack Elam.

Tyrone Power was nearly 20 years older than his character. During location work, Tyrone Power took a liking to former bookkeeper turned novice actor Jack Elam and talked 20th Century-Fox boss Darryl F. Zanuck into signing him to a contract, beginning with the Power movie "American Guerrilla in the Philippines" (1950).

The music score was by Sol Kaplan and the song "A Rollin' Stone" by Lionel Newman. The theme in the main title is from "Brigham Young (1940)," by Alfred Newman. Director Henry Hathaway retained the music from his film "Brigham Young" (1940) and also used Tyrone Power and Dean Jagger from that film.

Henry Hathaway cut his Western teeth on a long series of Zane Grey adaptations for Paramount in the 1930s, many with Randolph Scott.

This is an official remake of an earlier Fox crime film, "Show Them No Mercy" (1935), although no screen credit is given to its authors, Kubec Glasmon and Henry Lehrman.

During its run on television during the early 1960s, this suspenseful Oater was retitled "Desperate Siege" in order to distinguish it from the long-running Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood television series "Rawhide" (CBS-TV 1959-65).

Soundtrack music:
"A Rollin' Stone" - Music by Lionel Newman, Lyrics by Bob Russell
"Theme from Brigham Young" - Music by Alfred Newman, main title music
"Oh! Susanna" - Written by Stephen Foster

This violent, scary, unusually tense, claustrophobic, underrated embodiment of a solid Western production sports an excellent old-time Western cast, and represents the genre very well. Featuring an intelligent screenplay, inventive direction, and beautifully photographed in black & white with ingenious camerawork that makes good use of the mainly interior locations. A twist filled climax will keep you on the edge of your seat. This should be in anybodies Western Collection.