This uncharacteristic Don Siegel film is a musical excursion into the American West, starring Fabian, whose film career it was intended to launch, but, well, didn't. “He's a very nice boy,” claims Siegel. “Can't sing. Knows it. I did everything possible to stop him from singing (but couldn't). So I just had fun with the film.” A few chase sequences, and songs so well integrated with the plot line they are abruptly ended by plot intrusions, were some ways in which the famed action director and concerned pessimist played with the artificial, happy-go-lucky Western delivered to him by 20th Century Fox. “It could have been very good, if it had been done the way it should have been by Sam Peckinpah, who is of the west and knows it well.... He would have done it the way it should have been done: small.” --Don Siegel.
The N.Y. Times praised the film for its “mighty pretty color scenery and friendly rusticity,” Stuart Whitman's portrayal of a lusty hillbilly, and, lastly, Fabian: “When this amiable young man with a slightly stunned expression makes with the music, even the hounds subside.” (J.B.)