Although Marie Windsor plays the title role in Dakota Lil, she is shunted away to third billing, right after male leads George Montgomery and Rod Cameron. Montgomery is cast as a secret service agent Tom Horn, sent West to round up a gang of counterfeiters. He starts by gaining the confidence of dance-hall girl Lil (Windsor), one of the ringleaders. She, in turn, leads Horn to the brains of the operation, Harve Logan
(Cameron). When Lil finds out that Horn is a Fed, she's tempted to fill him full of holes; instead, having fallen in love with him, she tries to help him get the goods on Logan. Dakota Lil was based on a story by Frank Gruber, later one of the leading lights of the TV-western craze. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi