Wellman's low budget adaptation of the classic classroom text is set within the framework of the western, but really it is a dramatised polemic against mob justice. In Nevada, 1885 a popular rancher is reported dead and three cowboys passing through the territory are summarily lynched on insubstantial evidence.
Some of the men react to the supposed death of the local man with a lust for instant revenge. This desire passes through the group, but each has his own personal motivation for their reckless, unlawful action. There is little room for reason and even those who oppose the lynching are reluctant to speak in case the mob turns on them too. Once the craving is in motion, it must be satisfied.
And of course, the local farmer wasn't dead at all and the three strangers were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and several of the mob are charged with murder. This is a brief film which makes its case with little diversion, which enables its impact to be precise and powerful. There is a fine ensemble cast, with Dana Andrews particularly effective as a victim of the vigilantes.
Henry Fonda is the lead actor. His role as one of the few opposing the murder isn't especially prominent, but it is interesting to place The Ox-Bow Incident as a forerunner of 12 Angry Men (1957). This is a real curiosity. Obviously hardly any money was spent. There is no incidental noise on the soundtrack, no extras, hardly any set decoration. The studio look is artificial. It's a skeletal, dark, schematic tragedy that lingers and haunts the memory.