In one of film's great entrances, Erich von Stroheim falls from the rigging of a tawdry vaudeville theater in Mexico City, landing in a heap on the stage. What is it that has brought “The Great Flamarion,” a renowned marksman, to this pathetic finale? A broken man, he recounts his story, leading us back to the fateful night when he was headlining a novelty act in Pittsburgh. His assistants were a badly married couple: alkie Al (Dan Duryea), a sour drunk, and conniving Connie (Mary Beth Hughes), a seductress who packs more wallop than the nearby gats. Flamarion's pistol-packin' act relies on his martial discipline and in this he seems more impregnable than a Kevlar vest. But beneath his armored restraint resides a vulnerable, wanting soul. With equal precision, director Anthony Mann targets this dignified but wary marksman as suitable quarry for his double-barreled femme fatale. Flamarion is a pure Mannian hero-dogged by a wounding past, now little more than a spent round. Where but to Mexico would such a trajectory lead?