Passable Western
Joel McCrea, Zachary Scott, and Douglas Kennedy star as friends and partners whose ranch is destroyed as the Civil War rages on. Needing money to restart, they end up running guns for the Confederate Army, leaving McCrea's girlfriend Dorothy Malone behind and tangling with saloon singer/businesswoman Alexis Smith. However, each man wants something different, putting the former friends at odds with each other. South Of St. Louis is a passable film, neither exciting enough to be memorable, nor dull enough to be given a bad rating. The actors are competent in poorly drawn characters, the script average, the direction acceptable. Alexis Smith's saloon singer appears to have some spark to her in the beginning, but she quickly fades. The film needs some spark to get it going and to make the audience care. It's an average movie, nothing more, nothing less.