Films about brothers or heroes banded together in a common cause have always been among the cinema's most successful and usually work very well - especially if some of the heroes get killed, putting subtle pressure on our emotions.

Nowhere does this apply more than in the Western, and this John Wayne film is well in that tradition, with its story about about four brothers out to avenge their father's death.

Background music by Elmer Bernstein that's much in the mould of The Magnificent Seven and the cultured direction of Henry Hathaway (later to make Wayne's Oscar-winning True Grit) both help to shunt the story along in cracking style.

The action is dashingly violent, with gunman George Kennedy falling victim to one of the most devastating blows ever struck on the cinema screen.