Xenophobia plays a big part of the film, which often stemmed from hearsay and stories told by friends in small towns throughout the west.  Some of these stories can be read in old newspapers that exaggerated tales in order to increase sales.  This has also been exploited in many Westerns.  Then you have those who lived by the status of protecting themselves against others, and in that perspective strangers were commonly seen as threats.  Despite the prevalence of xenophobia many of the towns such as the one in Ox-bow Incident, they would have insisted that their town were the nicest and most pleasant of them all.  If this was the case, then why would there be stories of lynching and vigilantism in the decades after the Western expansion, stories such as the Ox-Bow Incident.

The film opens with two strangers riding into the quiet small town of the story's focus, as they tie their horses outside the town's saloon.  One of the strangers gives a friendly gesture to one of the townsfolk, probably to ease possible tension within the town.  These two men, Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) and his friend, are visiting Gil's girlfriend, Rose Mapen, but it happens that she has left most likely due to the married women who saw her as a threat.  Upset Gil ends up in a fight with a cowboy, Jeff Farnley (Marc Lawrence), who suggests that he has stolen some cattle since he is a stranger after all.  Instead of getting in trouble, Gil teaches the man a lesson by beating him up and making him look foolish.  Shortly after, a young boy rushes into the saloon and yells that Kinkaid has been killed and his cattle are missing.

The emotions are flowing and a vice-Sheriff improperly deputies the townsfolk who set out to find the killer.  Gil and his friend have no choice than to go with, or they might be perceived as the guilty party, which might be enough for a rowdy mob.  It turns into a journey of legal madness where lawlessness prevails in the hands of those in emotional turmoil while xenophobia reaches its pinnacle.  But instead of displaying an ordinary tale of vengeance, the Ox-Bow Incident depicts a moral story of justice and humanity in darkness.  The culminating ending delivers a potent lesson when the posse returns to the saloon where it all once began.  The director William A. Wellman truly created a brilliant cinematic experience through this Western tale, which opposes the greatness of the Western and instead displays the wickedness of lawlessness.

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COUNTRY

USA

Filmography links and data courtesy of