Paul Newman plays a Mexican bandit at the center of a murder and rape trial in this Wild West-version of Kurosawa's RASHOMON. A Southern gentleman is dead in a Southwestern border town, but little else is clear: as the three participants (including the dead man through a witness) tell their conflicting versions of the story, they seem only to shed light on the elusive nature of the truth. Adding another layer of obscurity, the events of the trial are related secondhand--by a prospector (Howard Da Silva) and preacher (William Shatner) to a con-artist (Edward G. Robinson)...and soon a fourth version is added to this befuddling brew.