It’s spring 1865, and the American Civil War is winding down. Factions have sprung off, and the frontier is rife with outlaws and gangs. Stuck in the middle is Border City, a town straddling the Arkansas and Missouri state lines, run by Delilah (Nina Varela), a formidable woman with iron mines on either side of the town. The Confederates get their ore from the southern mine, while the Yankees get there’s from the northern one. Delilah collects on both. And to maintain order, she forbids uniforms, pageantry, or rallies of any kind in Border City. And from the hanging that opens Woman They Almost Lynched, she means it. There’ll be no competing gales of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Dixie” in this saloon, thank you very much.

Into this tempestuous scenario rides the hapless Sally Maris (Joan Leslie), a young woman looking to reunite with her brother after 12 years. Brother Bill (Reed Hadley) hasn’t exactly walked the straight and narrow, and Sally is a tad appalled to see what he’s become. That’s when Kate (Audrey Totter) and her husband Charles (Brian Donlevy), leaders of the Quantrill gang, show up. Kate and Bill used to be engaged, and Bill never quite got over it. Kate decides to twist the knife and sings “All My Life” to humiliate him, which it does, and Bill draws, only to be gunned down in his own saloon.

That’s how Sally comes to inherit the saloon, as well as Bill’s debt. That traps her in Border City. It also gives Kate a complex. She worries everyone thinks she baited Bill, which she did. Totter spends the rest of the movie bouncing back and forth between sneering viper and petulant child. It’s an odd performance, but one just kooky enough to keep the wheels spinning.

Written by Steve Fisher and directed by Allan Dwan, Woman They Almost Lynched is a delightful and unusual western from Republic Pictures, one that looks beautiful and sports a lot more action than you might expect from a bargain basement studio. Dwan is one of the forgotten masters of early Hollywood, a filmmaker who capably made the leap from silent to sound, black and white to color. A true studio player through and through, Dwan always managed to take an exciting spin on standard fare.

That’s evident from the opening raid on Sally’s coach. Featuring moments like one rider spearing another with a flag, with the camera placed in the first rider’s point of view, to a stuntman who rides up to four other horses, leaps off his while still in gallop, and runs across the backs of two other horses to drag a soldier off the third. It’s not the kind of showstopper that made Scott McGee’s Danger on the Silver Screen, but it’s a bit of physical dexterity, the type that peppers Jackie Chan films, where you can’t believe you just saw what you did.

Then there are the characters. Sally, Kate, Delilah—they’re in control here. Since Sally neither gambles nor drinks, she manages to turn the saloon’s finances around, thanks to a few tips from the saloon singers (one of them played by Ann Savage). Sally is a quick learner, and from the looks Delilah gives her, she’s someone who knows the way even if she hasn’t been there before. What a delight.

Woman They Almost Lynched (1953)
Produced and directed by Allan Dwan
Screenplay by Steve Fisher
Based on a story in the Saturday Evening Post by Michael Fessier
Starring: Joan Leslie, Audrey Totter, Brian Donlevy, John Lund, Nina Varela, Reed Hadley, Ben Cooper, Jim Davis, Ann Savage
Republic Pictures, Not rated, Running time 90 minutes, Opened March 10, 1953