UNTAMED (1955)

If anything, it’s this Australia poster that’s ‘Not Suitable for Children,’ not the movie.  Just what’s going on here?  An attack?  A warning?  A threesome?  Yikes!  You can figure out what the studio thought they were getting into: a South African Western with Irish grandee Susan Hayward leaving the potato famine behind for a new start on a new continent. (AFRICOLOSSAL! in CINEMASCOPE as the ad copy had it.)  But when Dutch Settlement nation builder Tyrone Power rebuffs her, she weds fellow Irishman John Justin and takes a wagon train North, mere prologue to a series of deaths & adventures (widowhood; bastard child; Zulu warriors to slaughter in lieu of Native Americans; lovestruck rival Richard Egan; symbolic tree of tru-love split by a thunderbolt; ruined harvest redeemed by a literal diamond-in-the-rough; even young Rita Moreno to play a local slut).  A good two seasons worth of slightly bonkers story beats.  Plus a script that regularly sends Powers drifting out of the picture to build that start up country.  Director Henry King couldn’t get a break in his last working decade.  A fine craftsman, especially of Americana, his sole worthy gig in this late period a tough Gregory Peck Western (THE BRAVADOS/’58  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-bravados-1958.html ).  A few good things stand out: WideScreen views on the big Zulu attack, Franz Waxman’s bustling score; but no one kept their eye on the ball.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: Not strictly comparable, but Fred Zinnemann’s THE SUNDOWNERS/’60 gauges the possibilities for a new territory epic.  Loaded with well-developed characters, colorful incident & tart Australian flavor.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/sundowners-1960.html