Out at Warner Brothers in ‘49 as part of Jack Warner’s ruthless contract culling, likable lightweight Dennis Morgan was off-screen for three years before wrapping leading man status, only in his mid-40s, on three programmers. Second of the lot, directed in desultory fashion by pre-exploitation William Castle*, is this cut-rate 70" Western 'epic' about a pair of post-Civil War army pals (Morgan & Richard Denning) now in a Wild West tent show, leaving to head out West to the Indian Wars, along with Denning’s wife Paula Raymond. Part of the push to make territory safe for the oncoming Iron Horse: Denning needs to sober up; wife Raymond needs to choose between the men; and the army unit they’re helping needs to hold out till those quick-loading Springfield Rifles show up to even the odds against masses of Sioux on the warpath. (Caucasian ringers for Native Americans particularly egregious here.) With half the budget held back for a big battlefield finale (horseflesh & tinted Hollywood flesh), the film ought to go out with a bang, but once those superior rifles show up to save the day, and our soldier boys get to work killing, it feels less like a victory and more like an unfair advantage.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Same star, same director & same producer (Sam Katzman) in better form for next year’s URANIUM BOOM!/’56. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/07/uranium-boom-1956.html OR: Gary Cooper’s followup to his career reviving HIGH NOON was a Civil War spy drama called, of all things, SPRINGFIELD RIFLE/’52. Pretty good, too; André De Toth directs.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Castle’s straightforward default camera setup looks designed with last year’s 3D format in mind. Even odder, some weird back projection process shot angles, including a lulu where a stage driver looks straight-ahead while daintily holding the reins as if he were balancing cups & saucers for afternoon tea.
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