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Shane
Shane is a 1953 American Western film directed and produced by George Stevens and starring Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon deWilde and Jack Palance. The screenplay, written by A. B. Guthrie Jr. (with contributions from Jack Sher), is based on the 1949 novel of the same name by Jack Schaefer. Set in the Wyoming Territory in 1889, the film follows the titular character, a gunfighter with a mysterious past who becomes embroiled in a conflict between poor homesteaders and wealthy ranchers. The novel and film were both inspired by the Johnson County War (1888–1893).
Plot
Shane, a laconic but skilled gunfighter with a mysterious past, rides into an isolated valley in the sparsely settled Wyoming Territory in 1889. A drifter, he is hired as a farmhand by hardscrabble rancher Joe Starrett, who is homesteading with his wife, Marian, and their young son, Joey. Starrett tells Shane that a war of intimidation is being waged on the valley's settlers. Though they have claimed their land legally under the Homestead Acts, a ruthless cattle baron, Rufus Ryker, has hired various rogues and henchmen to harass them and force them out of the valley.