Some westerns for February.

A couple of westerns: Wild Horse Canyon (1925, directed by Ben F. Wilson, and Outlaw Women (1952), directed by stalwart Sam Newfield and Ron Ormond. Wild Horse Canyon is noteworthy for star Yakima Canutt’s nifty mounts on his horse and his nifty gun-twirling. The film also has some shots, especially near the end, that turn up in several B westerns of the 1930s. I watched the Alpha Video DVD, and Alpha is not known for the quality of its prints. This one is missing some 10 minutes and, although passable, is grainy and worn. Outlaw Women is a Lippert Production and shows it. The town of Las Mujeres (the women), is run by women, and this pretty much lets you know that the film tries to shift attention from men to women in the old west. Marie Windsor is Iron Mae McLeod; she runs the saloon (what else?) and she runs the town. The saloon bouncer is a tough woman who strikes matches with her teeth and tosses men about. This may sound good, but of course men arrive in town who manage to take centre stage, as it were. Something of a novelty western, Outlaw Women tries hard. It too is passable. We have gambling, saloon fights (think Destry Rides Again), stagecoach robbery, Sam Bass, some singing, and females with guns.

Valley of the Sun (1942), directed by George Marshall. Marshall made a few westerns with comedy, most notably Destry Rides Again (1939). Valley of the Sun is one of these, with Lucille Ball demonstrating the comedic skills that would flower in the next decade with the TV show, I Love Lucy. Here, she is Christine Larson, owner of a café who is about to marry the local Indian Agent, Jim Sawyer (Dean Jagger). Unbeknownst to her, Agent Sawyer has been cheating the Indians out of money and food. Then Jonathan Ware (James Craig) arrives. He is an army scout who has gone rogue by helping two Indians who were incarcerated on false claims of criminality to escape. You can guess what transpires. After some hijinks with a stagecoach, shots of Native people dancing, including the hoop dance, a dusty fistfight, and riding hither and yon, oh and some shooting, things get sorted out. This is a comedy and so no one is inveterately bad. The location shooting is fine, the battles staged well, and the fight between Geronimo (Tom Tyler) and Jim is unusual for this type of western. Indeed, Geronimo is unusual as played by Mr. Tyler. The film tries to present the Native people as more than just cannon fodder. It tries hard, but finds difficulty, as a teacher from my childhood used to say. As a western from the early 40s, Valley of the Sun is pleasantly engaging.

The Tall Texan (1953), directed by Elmo Williams. This is a low budget western from Lippert Productions that manages to overcome its low budget and difficult filming. The plot reminds us of The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) and Lust for Gold (1949). A small band of misfits and layabouts manage to find a stream that has gold in it, but the stream flows through a Native American burial ground. The Natives place spears in the ground to mark the boundary beyond which the gold diggers/panners must not go. You know the rest. Despite not having much dialogue in the film, the Native people are careful and intelligent. The eponymous character is Ben Trask (Lloyd Bridges), a Texan being taken back to stand trial for murdering his brother. Of course, he is innocent. Others include the travelling salesman and trickster Joshua Tinnen (Luther Adler), the sea captain Theodore Bess (Lee J. Cobb), the coach driver Carney (Syd Saylor), the sheriff Chadbourne (Samuel Herrick), and the woman Laura Thompson (Marie Windsor). The whole thing has a noirish feel to it, as if Stagecoach was crossed with Pursued and given The Treasure of Sierra Madre treatment. Joseph Biroc’s cinematography is crisp, and the location shooting is impressive. For a small, low-budget western, this one is a winner.

Last of the Comanches (1953), directed by Andre DeToth. DeToth made a few interesting westerns with Randolph Scott. This is not one of them. Here we have fast-talking Broderick Crawford as Sergeant Matt Trainor who leads a small and motley band of survivors across the desert. They struggle to find water, and they must be vigilant because Natives threaten to overwhelm them. The plot is predictable right down to the last minutes when the Cavalry arrives to save the day. The characters are stock, and no one, aside from Crawford, has much to do or say. As for Crawford, he is in his Highway Patrol mode, and he barks out orders and moves his girth around with admirable dexterity. The second unit director is Yakima Canutt, and so the action is well done, even if some of what we see reminds us of Stagecoach (1939). The cinematography, courtesy of Charles Lawton, Jr. and Ray Cory, is impressive, if we set aside some early process shots. The Native Americans provide targets in the shooting gallery for the action sequences. Films like this are wearisome, although I suppose it is useful to have reminders such as Last of the Comanches of the human failure to accept difference. In this film, we have a feeble attempt to redress the balance and present one ‘Indian’ as trustworthy and heroic. This is the boy Little Knife, played by New York-born Johnny Stewart! Familiar faces, such as Barbara Hale, Mickey Shaughnessy, Chubby Johnson, Lloyd Bridges, and Martin Milner make appearances, but none of these actors has much to do other than shoot, ride, and grimace. The film is a remake of Zoltan Korda’s Sahara (1943).

The Stand at Apache River (1953), directed by Lee Sholem. Like many westerns of the era, this is a siege western. A small band of people find themselves in a way station surrounded by Apaches. For the most part, the characters are stock and the action predictable. We do, however, have an attempt to give the attackers more screen time than usual, and to make them a bit more complex than usual. One of the men in the Way Station, Lance Dakota (Stephen McNally), expresses some sympathy for the attackers, remarking that white people take the Indians’ land, kill them, and when they fight back, the White men call this murder. Inside the Station, we have familiar conflicts between those who hate the Native people and those who sympathize, between the sexes, and between Lance, who is a sheriff, and his prisoner, Greiner (Russell Johnson). Colonel Morsby (Hugh Marlowe) is the Indian-hater. Among the group are two women, Ann Kenyon (Jaclynne Greene), wife of the Station’s proprietor, Tom (Hugh O’Brien), and Valerie Kendrick (Julie Adams) who is on her way to get married to someone she does not love. The appeal of such siege westerns for their studios was the modest budgets they called for since most of the filming is on sets, in this case inside the Station. In other words, such westerns are rather static; they do not have the sweep and grandeur we associate with the westerns of Ford or Mann or Boetticher. Still and all, this is a watchable second tier western from the 1950s.

Southwest Passage (1954, aka Camel Corps), directed by Ray Nazarro. Originally filmed in 3D, this western’s special feature comes in the form of camels and their “Arabian” handlers. These camels are on a trek across the desert, a test of their reliability for use by the American Cavalry. Along for the journey are Lilly (Joanne Dru) and Clint McDonald (John Ireland), two felons on the run from the law. Clint is posing as Dr. Elias P. Stanton (Morris Ankrum). Leading the band of cavalrymen and assorted others is Edward Beale (Rod Cameron). The film would be more interesting had the camels and their handlers had more to do with the action. They are, however, merely motivation for the trek across the desert. The focus is on Clint and Lilly and their troubled relationship. The filming is competent enough. Director Nazarro made plenty of westerns both before and after this one, perhaps most notably Cripple Creek (1952), Kansas Pacific (1953), and Domino Kid (1957). The characters are familiar, and the plot predictable. Well, almost predictable. The development of the love triangle works out a bit differently than we might expect. This is not a particularly distinguished western; it could have been more interesting had it dealt more with the Muslim characters and the camels. We do have moments of racial bias, especially expressed by the whip-snapping muleskinner, Matt Carroll (John Dehner). But this is a side-issue here. More upfront is Joanne Dru’s feisty leading lady who shoots as well or better than the men with whom she travels. Of course, we have the obligatory bathing scene, but in this one the lady sports a pistol!

Saskatchewan (1954), directed by Raoul Walsh. Hollywood has had a fanciful notion of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who “always get their man” since the silent era. Here Walsh offers the familiar picture of red-coated, Smokey the Bear Hat-wearing men who protect a land that differs from the land below the 49^th Parallel in its kindly treatment of First nations people. Fanciful indeed. Perhaps not Walsh’s finest effort, Saskatchewan nevertheless manages to tell a familiar story with likeable characters, Alan Ladd as Thomas O’Rourke who has been raised by the Cree, Jay Silverheels as Cajou, O’Rourke’s brother, Shelley Winters as Grace Markey, J. Carroll Naish as the Metis Batoche, and Hugh O’Brien as the American Marshal Carl Smith. The scenery, not the province Saskatchewan, but the montainous terrain around present-day Banff and Lake Louise, is impressive. The action sequences are efficient, as you would expect with Walsh. The plot is preposterous, but colourful. 

Ambush at Cimarron Pass (1958), directed by Jodie Copelan. Here is another one about a rag-tag band trying to make it to a Fort on foot while being threatened by Indians. This time the Indians are after the repeating rifles the small band of cavalrymen are carrying. This band meets with another small band of cattlemen and former Confederates as well as a Mexican woman whom the Indians deliver to them as some sort of bait. The action is predictable, the script rather wooden, and the action spotty. Transitions from shots on studio sets to location shots are awkward. The acting is okay; even the young Clint Eastwood as a hothead southerner is not too bad. The lead is Scott Brady, an actor (brother of Lawrence Tierney) who appeared in quite a few westerns in the 1950s, including Johnny Guitar (1954). All in all, this is a film that does not fit its time. The depiction of Native people is retrograde; after all, Delmer Daves’s Broken Arrow had appeared as early as 1950. My advice: give this one a miss.