classicsoncall
I couldn't help feeling Victor Mature's character here was a complete lunatic, his maniacal rant in front of the assembled cavalry troops in the latter part of the story should have banished him from anywhere near Fort Shallan. But then having Anne Bancroft's Corinna Marston 'sort of' fall for the undisciplined savage, well, that just blew away the whole story for me. It's one thing she wasn't happy in her marriage to the Colonel (Robert Preston), but to be influenced by Jed Cooper's (Mature) affections was simply too incredible for this viewer to fathom.The dynamic between Colonel Marston and Captain Riordan (Guy Madison) was a bit of a puzzler too. As short sighted as Marston was in pursuing his vendetta against Red Cloud's Tetons, he still thought it honorable that Riordan tried and failed to have him removed from his command at the fort. You would think the Colonel would have had his second in command further demoted or sent packing to the brig. I just didn't understand it at all.The over arching theme of the story has to do with civilization snaking it's tentacles further West with the Native American Indians marking time until the last of their way of life makes it's lonely exit. The final battle between the Tetons and the Cavalry has a ring of authenticity to it, but that's about as far as it goes for this frontier Western. Most everything else is as plausible as Jed Cooper being made a sergeant and getting the girl.
jjnxn-1
More of an army drama set in the West vs. a Western this has solid direction and some good actors. Victor Mature is hammy but Guy Madison gives a stronger performance here than was usual for him, relaxed and assured. Robert Preston is the cruel commander who is revealed early on as a soulless martinet. He is married to a soft and startlingly blond Anne Bancroft who is good but whose role is incidental. The film makes some veiled and some pointed references to early pioneers disregard for the ways not only of the Indians but of trappers and others who had easily coexisted with them destroying their way of life as valueless merely because it was not the settlers way.
dougbrode
Ordinarily, Anthony Mann made westerns with 'the big guys' - James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda . . . the A list cowboy stars. But in this B+ film, he tackled something notably different and had quite a bit of success with what turned out to be a truly one of a kind western. The main character, played by Victor Mature, is a trapper/ mountain man, and ordinarily they are romanticized in films - Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson, that sort of thing, where the hero is not in fact a typical mountain man but a clean cut heroic figure who hangs out with real mountain men. Not here. For once, a true mountain man - vulgar, crude, animalistic - is the central figure, and it's something to see, giving Mature one of his better later roles. The real acting chops are provided by Robert Preston, excellent as a self-absorbed Custer type cavalry commander, and James Whitmore, the poor man's Spencer Tracy, as another of those old timers who feel themselves trapped between ever more hostile Indians on the one side and the oncoming force of civilization on the other. Even more impressive is a very young Anne Bancroft as the officer's wife, who is initially repulsed by the very sight of Mature's grisly character, then finds her own veneer of civilization slipping away as she begins to realize, to her own shock, that she's attracted to him. Rarely if ever has a remote frontier fort been so accurately realized on screen, without the romantic allure that John Ford gave such a place in his masterful Fort Apache. The battle sequences are big scale and notably violent, and particularly impressive if you seen them in widescreen format. Good show, and underrated movie, all around.
bux
The casting of Mature as the "savage" and Robert Preston (NOT Preston Foster!!) as the crazed cavalry officer made this one very appealing. The story, pushing the envelope for it's time, has our hero attempting to steal a married woman. James Whitmore has a nice supporting role, and take it from me-the BEST westerns came out of the 50s!
AD
