Classic Rewind: The Tall T (1957) and Decision at Sundown (1957)

"THE TALL T" (1957)
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An exercise that Anthony Mann could be proud of, this psychological western sees Randolph Scott's golly-gee landowner held hostage alongside a pair of newlyweds by three thugs.
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Like a rockier, paler Man of the West, The Tall T begins to take shape the closer its characters come to desperation and anxiety. It's a film full of lonely, battered and isolated people - of dreams unfulfilled - forced together.
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It's perhaps the most languid of Boetticher's westerns, yet the landscapes (jagged, barren, dark) are some of his most profound. This is a quiet, measured and often surprisingly poignant effort. [B]
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"DECISION AT SUNDOWN" (1957)
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Perhaps the most thorough examination of revenge Boetticher ever put to the screen, this stand-off "town" western begins and end with Randolph Scott trotting into (and then out of) the eponymous Sundown.
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Announcing his arrival at a well-attended wedding, Scott (playing Bart Allison) reveals his intentions to the chapel gathering - he's going to kill Tate Kimbrough. "Ma'am", he says to the bride, "if you marry this man, you'll be a widow by sundown."
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We don't know what Kimbrough did to ruffle his feathers, and we won't find out for a while, but as Bart holes himself up in the livery stable, the town of Sundown begins to turn on itself to the point where the intruder and wedding saboteur has soon garnered the majority of the town's sympathies. 
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What happens in the final reel is contemplative, unsuspecting stuff for a traditional B-western, as Bart Allison's three-year quest for revenge comes to a head, and it's not likely the result he was planning on. [B+]