The Secret of Convict Lake

The Secret of Convict Lake is a 1951 American blackandwhite western film starring Glenn Ford and Gene Tierney. It was directed by Michael Gordon and produced by Frank P. Rosenberg, with music by Sol Kaplan. The film was a critical and commercial success. Ethel Barrymore and Ann Dvorak in her final film role costarred. The story is fiction, based on legends of Convict Lake, located in the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges of northern California.

Frightened by these men who arrive at night, the women however permit them to use an empty cabin. Granny hides guns where the unarmed men cant find them and they soon realise that the men are escaped convicts. In exposition, it becomes clear that Canfield Glenn Ford has returned to this small town for a reason and the other convicts suspect that he has money hidden somewhere in the small settlement. Canfield, we learn, had been convicted of killing a mine owner, Morgan, and 40,000 had gone missing, unfound after the murder.Canfield learns that the local woman Marcia, to whom he is attracted, is engaged to be married to a man named Rudy Schaeffer. It was Rudy Schaeffer whose testimony led to Canfield being sent to the penitentiary. Canfield claims it was Rudy behind the robbery, that Rudy took the 40,000 and unfairly swore testimony against Canfield, who then reveals that he has returned to the town to seek revenge and kill Schaeffer. Marcia finds it hard to accept his version of events, a damning version against her fianc, while at the same time she is attracted to Canfield. ........

Source: Wikipedia