Two old friends, Matt Morgan (Kirk Douglas) and Craig Belden (Anthony Quinn), now find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Belden, a rich cattle baron, is the de facto ruler of the town of Gun Hill. Morgan is a U.S. Marshal living in another town with his Cherokee wife (played by Ziva Rodann) and young son, Petey.
Two young drunken cowboys rape and murder Morgan's wife while she is returning with their son from a visit to her father. The boy escapes on one of the killers' horses which bears a distinctive, fancy saddle.
Morgan sets off to find the killer. His one clue is the saddle, which he recognizes as belonging to Belden. Assuming it was stolen from his old friend, Morgan travels to the town of Gun Hill to pick up the trail, but once there he quickly realizes that Belden's son Rick (Earl Holliman) is the killer.
Belden refuses to turn over his son, forcing Morgan to go against the entire town. Morgan vows to capture Rick and get him on that night's last train from Gun Hill.
Morgan takes Rick prisoner, holding him at the hotel. Belden sends men to rescue his son, but Morgan manages to hold them off. In the meantime, Belden's former lover, Linda, (Carolyn Jones) decides to help Morgan. She sneaks a shotgun to his hotel room. The second rapist, Lee, sets fire to the hotel to flush out Morgan.
Morgan presses the shotgun to Rick's chin on the way to the train depot, threatening to pull the trigger if anyone attempts to stop him. Lee tries to kill Morgan but shoots Rick instead. Morgan then kills Lee with the shotgun. As the train prepares to leave, a devastated Belden confronts Morgan in a final showdown and is gunned down.
Cast
Earl Holliman in a promotional photograph for the film
A key theme of the film is the tragic opposition between natural law and manmade law, originally drawn in Sophocles’ Antigone.
The backstory of the principal characters sees them operating as partner outlaws in the wilds - an effective state of nature. Subsequently, Morgan and Belden part ways each choosing to settle down and in their own way exemplify a lawful mode of life.
Belden is an exemplar of the natural law. This is partly conveyed in the manner of Plato’s Gorgias, with Belden a natural leader of men who has built his own private fiefdom at Gun Hill. He displays Gorgias’ virtues in his martial courage, justice and wisdom, though each of these, as with Gorgias, largely serve Belden’s own ends: this is the justice of the victor and wisdom of the political operator. To this, crucially, is added that view of natural law which begins at home and with one’s own (see Stoicism). The plot turns on Belden regarding his obligation to protect his son as overriding the positive law of the state.
For his part, Morgan is a courageous, dutiful marshall of manmade positive law (Kelsen), indeed declaring at one point “I am the law.” Morgan attempts to maintain due process throughout, for example seeking approval of his warrants from the corrupt local sheriff, attempting to see the accused, Rick, to a courthouse, and refusing to initiate violence against Belden. Yet as Morgan proceeds to enforce the law, he struggles to differentiate his own personal stake in the outcome of his actions, perhaps driving him to overcompensate by even stricter application of the law. Compare the “long view” of the corrupt local sheriff, to Morgan’s tragic adherence to legal formalism. In slavishly holding to process rather than seeking an unofficial resolution, the suggestion is that much greater damage is done to all involved.
The dynamic is seen in Linda’s character arc: describing herself early on as someone who never gave much attention to rules, she finds in Morgan a hero lawman who could save Gun Hill from Belden's abusive control, but in the denouement she surveys the results of Morgan’s law enforcement and turns her eyes from him in disappointment.
