Just as [Lewis] made Gun Crazy (1949) into a psychosexual masterpiece, he likewise makes The Halliday Brand into something more than a workaday Western.

Strange, socially conscious Western.

A superior western that never got the attention it should have.

He who is not with me is against me! The Halliday Brand is directed by Joseph Lewis and written by George W. George and George F. Slavin. It stars Joseph Cotton, Ward Bond, Betsy Blair, Bill Williams, Viveca Lindfors, Jay C. Flippen, Christopher Dark and Jeannette Nolan. Music is by Stanley Wilson and cinematography by Ray Rennahan. The Halliday family is presided over by patriarch Big Dan (Bond). Dan is a bigot and rules the roost with an iron fist - he's also the town sheriff! When he finds his daughter, Martha (Blair), is in a relationship with half-breed Jivaro Burris (Dark), he is enraged and it kicks off a series of events that forces the eldest son, Daniel (Cotton), to become rouge to his father's ways. He can't protect his own property, how's he going to protect yours? Get a new sheriff or you're next. It's a little strange to think that a film directed by auteur Joseph H. Lewis, one that gets runs on TCM, and is a Western at that, is still in this day and age crying out for some attention. The low volume of reviews written on line for it - both professional and amateur - further emphasises that it is little seen and sadly forgotten. Which for genre fans, and in particular those who like some psychological barbs in their narratives, is a damn shame. We are firmly in the realm of the Oedipal and the Freudian, where the pic cross examines the effects that a tyrannica…