[1] The Sky Pilot (Bowers) arrives in a small rough-and-tumble cattle town in Canada, intent on bringing religion to its tough residents.

Shot largely in the High Sierra near Truckee, California, this big budget western was plagued by bad weather.

[4] The film serves to showcase Vidor's faith in the power of positive thinking, free of puritanism or Christian moralizing, which celebrates the virtues of self-reliance and the inherent vitality of rural communities.

The redemptive value of "individualist" faith provides a subtext for the movie, as John Bowers as the manly Sky Pilot adroitly converts local ruffians to Christian-like virtues.

When cowboy Bill Hendricks (David Butler is bested by the Sky Pilot in a fist fight he confesses: "When a man’s religion will let him do what you done and live, there must something in it.