While still busy with "The Twilight Zone", Rod Serling also wrote the script for this pungent drama of social justice, for the "Chrysler Theatre". His crisp, powerful dialogue still resonates.
It takes a bit of effort to get used to the lily-white TV casting of the time, with two principal Native American roles going to fine actors (but hardly authentic) Stuart Whitman and Joseph Calleia. The familiar confrontational story structure of good bad-guy Melvyn Douglas versus bad good-guy Whitman plays well, and having Angie Dickinson on board as Douglas's tough-talking daughter is a plus.
The subject is lynching, and Serling making it about Indians rather than Blacks works well with the contemporary small-town Western setting. It plays like a parable, and from Whitman's distinctive swagger to Calleia's egalitarian wisdom there are fine, memorable moments.