A masked outlaw, two jealous outlaws, and one dancer who plays them all. What could go wrong?
Cheerful outlaw Charlie Boles leaves former partners Lance and Jersey and heads for California, where the Gold Rush is beginning. Soon, a lone gunman in black is robbing Wells Fargo gold shipments. One fateful day, the stage he robs carries old friends Lance and Jersey...and notorious dancer Lola Montez, coming to perform in Sacramento. Black Bart and Lance become rivals for both Lola's favors and Wells Fargo's gold.
Acting
Dan Duryea's sardonic charm makes this borderline unlikable outlaw weirdly rootable.
Costume
That black mask and ensemble—simple, iconic, surprisingly menacing for 1948.
Director
George Sherman
Yvonne De Carlo
Lola Montez
Dan Duryea
Charles E. Boles / Black Bart
Jeffrey Lynn
Lance Hardeen
Percy Kilbride
Jersey Brady
Lloyd Gough
Sheriff Gordon
Frank Lovejoy
Mark Lorimer
John McIntire
Clark
Don Beddoe
J.T. Hall
Ray Walker
MacFarland
Soledad Jiménez
Teresa
Eddy Waller
Ed Mason
Eddie Acuff
Elkins (uncredited)
Ray Bennett
Henry (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Black Bart robbed 28 Wells Fargo stages between 1875-1883 and famously left poems at crime scenes—this film conveniently ignores the poetry.
Yvonne De Carlo was fresh off her breakthrough in 'Song of Scheherazade' and Universal was aggressively positioning her as their new exotic bombshell—hence the wildly ahistorical casting as Irish-born Lola Montez.
US
