The opening scene tells all and from then its only for the inevitable to play itself out. In the background a distinctly building buzz as the camera pans in a graceful arc to take in the landscape of the desert winding up its sweep on a close-up of a recumbent cowboy. Douglas, playing the charismatic drifter Jack Burns, dragging on a cigarette looks up toward the sound dominating the sky and watches the long plumes trail after three streaking jet planes. Burns' brawl with a one-armed man is reminiscent of the fabulous fracas in Bad Day at Black Rock with a role reversal. The timing involved in this sequence is brilliant.
Nothing is wasted.
The brawl is Burns' way of breaking into jail to see his closest friend. In prison, he tries to convince his friend to break with him, to the old way of life, to youth, to a freedom from social responsibility. But the way through the sage brush and brambles is Jack's way. The pursuit, again extremely compact, is magnificent. It moves at a breathless pace built by unrelenting tension.