Director Anthony Mann fleshes out the intricate story with vigorous and subtle attention to its disparate elements-political, psychological, and brutal.

As in Reign of Terror, Anthony Mann fashions a noir mini-masterpiece out of incongruous period reconstruction.

Filmmaker Anthony Mann--who redefined the Western two years later with The Naked Spur--treats The Tall Target like the noir it is while capturing a political atmosphere on the edge in 1861.

The train setting is imaginatively employed by director Anthony Mann.