The Proud Rebel

A Confederate veteran named John Chandler travels north after the Civil War with his young son, David, who has not spoken since witnessing his mother's death in a fire that destroyed the family home. Chandler is searching for a doctor who might restore the boy's speech, but in a small town he is wrongly blamed for a brawl and faces a jail sentence. A local woman, Linnett Moore, pays his fine on the condition that he work it off on her ranch, where he becomes caught up in her struggle to hold onto her land against a powerful neighbor whose sons were behind the fight.

The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, the twenty-third of the twenty-five features he made, arriving between We're No Angels and King Creole. Alan Ladd plays Chandler, with Olivia de Havilland as Linnett Moore, Dean Jagger as Harry Burleigh, and David Ladd as the boy; Cecil Kellaway and Harry Dean Stanton also appear. Joseph Petracca and Lillie Hayward wrote the screenplay, and Samuel Goldwyn Jr. produced.

Released in 1958, the drama runs 103 minutes. Made for about two million dollars, it returned roughly the same amount worldwide, so it did not turn a profit on its theatrical run. Audiences have rated it modestly, with a 6.9 out of 10 on IMDb from around 2,600 votes and a 6 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller pool.