Gary Cooper brings a ruthlessness to Frail, a sort of strange mixture of kindness and control expressed by a doctor itching to do at least some harm. An uncomplicated Western about four complicated people and the squabbles that swallow their happiness.

Perhaps no other actor in Hollywood history played more flawless heroes than Gary Cooper, which makes his character in the Western drama The Hanging Tree an interesting one.

“The Hanging Tree” asks us to visit a place we think we’ve been before in past Westerns, but ends up bucking many of the genre conventions.

Daves directed in a fashion to give Coop full leash in playing his grim but sympathetic lend role.