 A lesson in visual deja vu for those who had seen John Ford s 1936 "The Prisoner of Shark Island", indicating that director Charles Marquis Warren and producer John C. Champion, as co-writers of this film, had some working knowledge of the Ford film themselves. The prison in the one, called Hellgate, is set in New Mexico during the Civil War, where the sadistic warden, Union Army officer Tod Vorhees (Ward Bond) takes more than an instant dislike for newly-arrived prisoner Gil Hanley (Sterling Hayden.) Hanley is innocent of the crimes charged to him---shades of Dr. Samuel Mudd---but that doesn t cut him any slack. Those who saw the Ford film know an epidemic is about to hit the prison and Hanley will be called on to combat it. Those who didn t can be surprised when it happens.