FILM SUMMARY

Shane opens with Alad Ladd as the title character emerging from the mountains above a sparse Western settlement. As he is passing through the homestead Joe (Van Heflin) and Marian (Jean Arthur) Starrett share with their young son Joey (Brandon De Wilde), the Ryker gang, a group of cattlemen hostile to the local settlers, appear and accuse Starrett of squatting on their grazing land. Trouble is averted when Shane unexpectedly aligns himself with Joe, and the gang rides off without incident. Shane is invited to dinner and soon agrees to stay on with the Starretts as a hired hand. He rapidly becomes a hero-figure to young Joey and a valued friend to Joe, while meaningful looks are exchanged between him and Marian.

Later, having gone into town to buy work clothes, Shane stoically endures the taunts Chris Calloway (Ben Johnson), one of Ryker's followers, directs at him when he stops into the saloon to buy a soda for young Joey. Back at home, Shane walks in on a meeting of the settlers Joe has called in response to a neighboring homesteader's decision to leave as a result of Ryker's intimidation. Joe convinces the others to stick together as a group, and they plan to ride into town together the next day to shop for the upcoming Fourth of July celebration. When they do, Shane re-enters the saloon as a tacit challenge to Calloway, who has warned him to stay out. A fight ensues, and when Shane knocks Calloway out, the leader of the cattlemen Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer) offers him a job, which he refuses. This provokes the rest of Ryker's men and at first Shane takes them on single-handedly; soon, however, Joe joins in, and despite being outnumbered, they more than hold their own until the fight is broken up by Sam Grafton (Paul McVey), the saloon's owner.