Walter Brennan is the screen’s definitive Judge Roy Bean—dispenser of the law in Vinegaroon, Texas—in Wyler’s crackling depiction of conflict in post-Civil War America. Cowpoke Gary Cooper is sentenced to hang for horse thieving, but the mercurial Judge takes a liking to him and stays the execution even as a range war and a visit from actress Lily Langtry (Lilian Bond) fire up the townsfolk.