Shifting desert sand dunes lend their character to the title of the picture, otherwise "The Walking Hills" might not make much sense. The picture draws heavily from the Bogart classic "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", but instead of three intrepid prospectors hooking up with a fourth, here we have nine members of an expedition joined by a female traveler (Emma Raines) with a score to settle, or at least find closure if that be her fate.

Randolph Scott portrays the nominal leader of the rag-tag desert bunch; funny how in retrospect his character's name (Jim Carey) conjures up a rather different image if you choose to dwell on it. Other members of the gold hunting party include William Bishop, Arthur Kennedy, John Ireland and the always reliable Edgar Buchanan. Considering that Scott's character is the one supposed to have the most common sense and leadership ability, I was consistently distracted by the idea that he would bring a favored mare about to foal into a scorching desert where the threat of a sand storm was ever imminent.

A rather stunning casting decision for the film involved the presence of blues guitarist and singer Josh White. He's on hand it seems, primarily to lend his voice to a handful of bluesy numbers that emotionally affect his fellow travelers to varying degrees, though his presence has no additional impact on the story line. Among White's career accomplishments was his being the first black singer to give a White House command performance in 1941 for then President Roosevelt.

For a rather short film clocking in at around seventy eight minutes, the story manages it's fair share of character development among the principles while a trio of players (Bishop, Jerome Courtland and Arthur Kennedy) each harbor an innate fear of their questionable past being discovered. The ride off into the sunset so to speak, by Ella Raines' Christy and Bishop's Davey Wilson character may leave one somewhat baffled considering what went before, but no more so than the shifting sand dunes that render their verdict for the remaining wanderers.