Born 1829; died 1909. That’s all you need to know to figure out what a raw deal and what a load of historical hooey Apache warrior Geronimo got in the movies. This early try starts encouragingly (that exclamatory title!), with backhanded admiration on screen (‘The Story of a Great Enemy’), and in hiring Native American Chief Thundercloud to play him. But after an opening scene at the White House where a sympathetic President Grant notes broken treaties, starvation rationing, crooked suppliers and a near official policy clash between the peace pedaling Indian Affairs Bureau and Army extermination practices, it’s business as usual for the rest of the film. In fact, the story’s hardly about Geronimo at all. Instead, Grant forces reluctant martinet General Ralph Morgan to take on the job unaware that he’s assigned estranged son William Henry to the unit. The rest is almost entirely dysfunctional father/son issues alternating with dysfunctional attitudes between the ‘regular’ army guys already out there and the interloping/clueless General. Journeyman director Paul Sloane, given a slightly above average B-pic budget (lots of process and stock footage in here) can’t get us interested in the familial drama, allowing Capt. Preston Foster and schlubby aide Andy Devine whatever heroics & swagger available. Indeed, Devine, for once, gets to play last man standing. Oh, and Geronimo? In this one, he’s killed about four decades before the fact.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: The Martinet General/Regular Army conflict, along with the estranged father/son drama proved perfect material for the first and third films in John Ford’s classic Cavalry Trilogy: FORT APACHE/’48 and RIO GRANDE/’50. OR: 1962 GERONIMO. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/07/rio-grande-1950.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/01/geronimo-1962.html
