Maybe my fave is John Carradine as the honorable "Southern gentleman" gambler Hatfield. Then again, Claire Trevor's hardened and grim, beautiful spirited Dallas is heart-grabbing (she won an Academy Award for her lush Gaye Dawn in "Key Largo," another movie she helped make a core classic) ... and John Wayne is so young and handsome and even wistful ...
... then there's boozy Doc who you just love, and Andy Devine as the driver ... Peacock the Christian Whiskey Drummer ... the compassionate lawman Curly (George Bancock) ... and Luke Plummer (Tom Tyler), darkly tossing down his bit of liquid courage before stepping out on the street to face the Ringo Kid ... the music of the piano player in the saloon putting it all in context .. the whole movie is fabulous, top to bottomus. When men were men and women were tomatoes!
The stunt man, Yakima Canutt ... what a guy!! Yak and John Wayne were good pals. Yak did stuff that NOBODY did. He was amazing. My dad broke horses as a way to earn his way through college and was a pretty good horseman -- he admired no horseman more than Yak, although he also said John Wayne held a fine saddle! I watch the really, really OLD Republic B-movie John Wayne flicks just for Yak. He was absolutely ... out of this world.
Did you ever watch any of Canutt’s silent western films, in which he starred? Like “Hellhounds of the Plains,” “The Devil Horse,” or “Desert Greed?” Fun stuff. Lower budget fare, not as elaborate as the Mix, Gibson, Maynard silent westerns, but Yak does a lot of good stunts and has a pretty endearing personality.
You probably already know that Yakama was an assistant director on Ben Hur. He did all the work with the horses.