The Guns of Fort Petticoat

It can be easy at times to forget that in the taming of the wild west, it wasn’t just the men leading the charge. Now granted, the movies, TV shows and western novels tend to focus on the male characters, but the women played a major role in the settling of the west. I’ve made no bones about my issue with female characters in so many westerns, but my issue has nothing to do with what the women did, just how they’re portrayed; the whiny, helpless damsels in distress who couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag. To live in the west in the second half of the 1800s, you had to be tough whether you were man or woman.

Too few westerns take advantage of that situation. There are countless stories of what women accomplished in the west. One of the best examples – which I reviewed a couple years back – was Westward the Women, a story of a wagon train full of women heading west to meet their husbands. They struggle on and keep going, taking everything thrown at them and continuing to fight. As part of the Audie Murphy night recently on Turner Classic Movies, 1957’s The Guns of Fort Petticoat reminded me a lot of ‘Westward’ for all the right reasons, taking the formula and tweaking it a bit as a valley-full of women must fend for themselves during an Indian uprising.

With the Union and Confederate forces back east in the Civil War, cavalry officer Lt. Frank Hewitt (Murphy) sees a superior officer order an unnecessary and brutal attack on a peaceful Indian village and knows there will be repercussions at their western post. He deserts his post and rides south, knowing there will be attacks and raids for thousands of miles in every direction. Hewitt is heading home to his home in Texas, a little valley that lies unprotected with all the men off fighting the war. Organizing all the women left behind, he prepares a defense at an abandoned Spanish mission, knowing an attack will come. He trains the women, readying them for the coming fight, but can he get them ready enough in time?  

This is a movie that had a lot of potential to be a campy western full of obvious humor that would have been remembered for all the wrong reasons. Instead, director George Marshall turns in an above average western that is entertaining, well-made and different from your typical run of the mill cowboys/cavalry and Indians movies. 'Guns' was filmed in Old Tucson, one of the most instantly recognizable locations for western shooting to anyone even remotely familiar with westerns. For starters, it looks great. Not given a credit in the credit sequence, composer Mischa Bakaleinoff turns in an appropriate, exciting western score that keeps the action flowing. At just 82 minutes, this is fast paced and exciting, and a quality example of a modest B-movie rising above its genre conventions.

Before his tragic death in 1971 in a plane crash, Murphy made 44 movies of which 33 were westerns. He just seems at home as the lead -- cowboy, rancher, officer, scout, gunman -- in all these westerns.  I don't intend this as a criticism, but Murphy wasn't the greatest actor around as he worked within a comfort zone that played to his range. Nothing wrong with that. That resolute, staunch hero is especially needed here because he's the only good guy (quite literally GUY) around. There are attacking Indians, conniving cowards, and a gang of opportunistic bandits around with Murphy leading the way for his little company of female fighters. Murphy -- range limitations aside -- is always very believable, very natural in his acting, and his performance is a key to this movie's success.

Instead of working with one tough, strong female co-star, Murphy gets plenty of them here. His company includes Kathryn Grant as Anne, a pretty tomboy who catches Lt. Hewitt's eyes, Hope Emerson as Hannah Lacey, an older, tough as nails woman who claims to be as tough as any three men and becomes Hewitt's "sergeant," (a similar role to the one she played in a similar movie, Westward the Women), Peggy Maley as Lucy, a saloon girl with a heart of gold (of course), Isobel Elsom as a prim and proper Southern woman with her slave/assistant, Hetty (Ernestine Wade) along, Jeanette Nolan as Cora, the bible-thumping religious freak and Patricia Tiernan as Stella, a past love interest of Hewitt's who hasn't quite moved on. As an ensemble filling in the pieces around Murphy, the almost all female supporting cast does not disappoint in their performances.  

So often 1950s westerns can be extremely tame looks at a particularly brutal time in American history. That's not an issue here with this western. When a small group of people fort up and basically prepare for a siege, there are going to be some casualties.  My worry was that somehow all these characters would make it through the movie unscathed, throwing away any semblance of reality. The siege and continuing attacks on the mission where Hewitt and Co. hole up are a bright spot for the movie. They're realistic, violent, and shot in a way where the battle is always coherent and easy to follow (harder than you'd think comparing it to other movies). And there are casualties which is probably a little more shocking because you just don't see many female characters killed in westerns. The action though on top of a solid story make this western better than most.

Now there are moments where this movie leans toward the camp humor (intentionally or not). Jeff Donnell plays Mary Wheeler, a single woman who is pregnant with the baby of a no-good gunslinger, Emmett Kettle (Sean McClory). It's the type of performance that grates like so many other helpless female characters and feels out of place compared to the rest of the women. There's also the obnoxious but somehow necessary little kid (Kim Charney), full of piss and vinegar and "tough talk" who ends up causing an attack when the Indians are about to pass the group by. Nolan's Cora is also a little much as the religious zealot, especially her rant in the end. Other small parts go to Ray Teal, Nestor Paiva and James Griffith as three low-down bandits. Underused parts, but effective for what's needed. Named Salt Pork, Tortilla and Kipper respectively, they also have three of the coolest names ever.

Reviews are somewhat mixed on Guns, and most of the criticisms I read were very fair. But in the end, I liked this western a lot. It isn't a classic western, but it does just about everything it can to be an above average oater. 

The Guns of Fort Petticoat <---TCM clips (1957): *** 1/2 /****