"The Face of an Angel-The Soul of a Scorpion." Thus was ranchwoman Veronica Lake described in the publicity for Ramrod, a tough noir Western (seen tonight in the UCLA Film Archive's 35mm preservation print). "Headstrong" Lake is reunited with Sullivan's Travels co-star Joel McCrea, here a saddletramp sobering up to become her "ramrod" (no smart remarks, please; it's lingo for a ranch foreman), after her fiancé shames himself by "hiding behind her skirts." On the usually ponderous sheepmen-versus-cattlemen plotline, director Andre de Toth fashions complex characterizations and shifting situations, full of the new passions that energized the Western genre after World War II. For thoroughly collapsing the black/white distinctions of the "classic" Western, Ramrod deserves a place alongside the other great 1947 noir Western, Pursued (coming April 12). Scott Simmon