Vengeance Valley
1951 film directed by Richard Thorpe
Vengeance Valley is a 1951 American Technicolor Western film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Burt Lancaster, Robert Walker, Joanne Dru, Sally Forrest, John Ireland and Ray Collins. It is based on a novel by Luke Short.
In 1979, the film entered the public domain in the United States because Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer failed to renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.
Plot
Owen Daybright is the foreman at the Colorado cattleman Arch Strobie's ranch and is also Strobie's foster son. Owen and his foster brother Lee hear that Lily Fasken has given birth. Owen takes food and money to Lily and finds Lee's wife Jen and Lily's brother Dick, who has been trying to identify the baby's father. Owen is concerned for Lily's welfare. When Jen asks him to disclose the identity of father, Owen does not reply. Dick suspects that Owen is the father, but Jen denies it because Owen is a good man.
Lee thanks Owen for helping Lily and says that he cannot admit being the father, as Jen would not understand.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Vengeance Valley” is 1951 film directed by Richard Thorpe. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Vengeance, Valley and film, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1951 film directed by Richard Thorpe” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q542215. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951 and 1979.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Vengeance Valley”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Vengeance Valley primary sources, Vengeance Valley archive and Vengeance research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Vengeance Valley”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Vengeance Valley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.