The make-up was done by Bud Westmore, who also did the make-up for the ASJ Pilot. Jack Kelly (Dr. Chauncey Beauregard in Night of the Red Dog) has a small role and Boyd “Red” Morgan (Augie Helms in The Fifth Victim) has an uncredited role but I only knew they were in this movie by looking at the credits.
Reagan is Frame Johnson, the law in Tombstone, Arizona. But he gives up his job as marshal after bringing in one last outlaw and, along with his two brothers and the local undertaker, ride off with a hearse to Cottonwood, where they plan to be ranchers. Naturally, their plan does not proceed as smoothly as they would like and the rest of Law and Order shows why.
Chiefly because Cottonwood is run by a businessman whom Frame ran out of Dodge City years ago and the local sheriff is in his pocket. The few honest people in Cottonwood, led by a judge, implore Frame to take on the marshal’s job for that town but his ladylove Jeannie, who runs a saloon back in Tombstone, like Mary in Exit from Wickenburg except that Jeannie inherited the establishment from her father instead of her husband, abhors the idea of Frame being a lawman because she is afraid he’ll be killed so he keeps refusing.
But Law and Order is a Western from 1953 so ultimately Frame can’t help but take on the job to clean up the corrupt town, especially after tragedy strikes. The relationship between Frame and his brothers, who were hard to distinguish from each other, and the undertaker, who provided the comic undertone, is what really drives Law and Order. In that respect, it reminded me of Tombstone, with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer. There is also an element of Romeo and Juliet to the movie.
Even though this is a Universal Studios production and was clearly filmed there as well as on location, the sets did not look at all like those in ASJ twenty or so years later.
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