This Texas-set saga of a frontier family whose adopted daughter (Audrey Hepburn, in her only Western) may possess Native American blood, was Huston’s response to John Ford’s The Searchers. Huston hoped to make a frank statement on racial prejudice in America, and though studio interference blocked him from fully realizing his goal, the finished product is a sober and intelligent film with fine performances, including Audie Murphy as Hepburn’s bigoted brother, Lillian Gish as the family matriarch, and Burt Lancaster as the family’s eldest son whose monomaniacal drive to protect his loved ones rivals that of The Searchers’ Ethan Edwards.