The Great Sioux Massacre

I caught part of They Died With Their Boots On recently on a cable movie channel. It got me thinking. There just isn't many movies made about George Armstrong Custer, and then I quickly corrected myself. There aren't many good movies about Custer. Yeah, Boots is good if dated, and the TV miniseries Son of the Morning Star is an exception. Well, here we sit with another entry. Where does 1965's The Great Sioux Massacre end up?

Having received new orders, Lt. William Benton (Darren McGavin) rides west to the fort where the Seventh Cavalry is stationed. He's looking forward to meeting his new commander, Colonel George Armstrong Custer (Philip Carey), a renowned Indian fighter who's reputation precedes him. Tensions with the Plains Indians are rising with each passing month, but that's just part of the problem for Benton. A woman from his past, Caroline Reno (Julie Sommars), is stationed at the post with her angry, alcoholic father, one of Custer's officers, Major Marcus Reno (Joseph Cotten). Benton immediately requests a transfer to avoid the drama, but Colonel Custer convinces him to stick it out. A fight with the Indians is coming, and Custer has some master plans for his cavalry regiment and for his future beyond.

One of the most fascinating personalities in American history, George Armstrong Custer is a divisive individual. Was he a hero, a brilliant military strategist and Indian fighter? Was he a bumbling officer, a gloryhound seeking his own fame? It's some of both most likely, but the moral of the story is pretty simple. This isn't a good movie. From director Sidney Salkow, 'Sioux' takes the history of the late 1860s and into the 1870s, throws it into a blender and pours what's left into this 102-minute B-western. He rewrites the history that is really interesting in itself and makes it....well, not interesting. That takes some doing when you consider the background.

So where to start? It's based on Custer, the Seventh Cavalry and the Battle of the Little Big Horn, but there are tweaks at basically all turns. Everyone else is named after the historical individuals they're based on, except for McGavin's Lt. Benton, supposedly based on Lt. William Benteen. The actual Benteen isn't interesting though so let's switch things up!!! In the facts, Benteen and Major Reno were both born in 1834, but here Benteen (um, Benton) has dated Reno's daughter. Yeah, personal drama! Reno is also apparently an angry Southerner who still holds a grudge against the North. Benton is also a Southerner with McGavin sporting a painfully awkward southern accent. Seriously, folks? Are we really doing this? We're degenerating a really fascinating historical story into a really forced, not worthwhile love story.

But somehow and some way Colonel Custer will save us. Right? Right?!? No, not especially. Carey doesn't have the star power or charisma to bring Colonel Custer to life. There is so much potential for character development and really delving into the guts of a military leader with an instantly recognizable name. Some of the actual history is explored, especially Custer's efforts to expose government corruption surrounding the Indian agencies. Before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the actual Custer was actually removed from command and potentially facing some serious threats from President Grant. The story and facts are interesting, but the actual execution is not unfortunately in the film. Also look for Nancy Kovack as Libby, Custer's supportive wife.

Much of the screentime is focused on Custer, Benton and Reno, wasting some potentially cool supporting parts. I thought the most interesting character was the cavalry scout, Dakota (John Matthews), a white man who saw his family wiped out by Indians. Also look for Michael Pate as Sitting Bull and Iron Eyes Cody as Crazy Horse, underutilized as warrior counterparts to our bumbling cavalry officers. There's also House Peters Jr. appearing late as Cambridge, a reporter tasked with building up Custer's heroic actions.

So Custer couldn't save things. Could the actual battle scene, the infamous Custer's last stand? Um, no. Throughout the movie in hopes of hiding the film's small budget, footage is liberally borrowed from a 1954 western, Sitting Bull, also directed by Salkow. Small world, huh?!? Basically any shot of cavalry leaving the fort or riding across the plains or heading into battle is from the 1954 movie, not the 1965 one. The filming locations are vastly different so this footage stands out like a sore thumb. Just not good. Oh, so not good.

The Great Sioux Massacre (1965): * 1/2 /****

Pushover

As I mentioned in my review of Billy Wilder's The Apartment, I have a hard time seeing Fred MacMurray as anything but the star of Disney movies like The Absent-Minded Professor and The Shaggy Dog or on the TV show My Three Sons. An all-American Dad if there ever was one so I have trouble going along with his darker roles like in 1954 film noir Pushover. 

Working a case, middle-aged police officer Paul Sheridan (MacMurray) meets Lona (Kim Novak), the girlfriend of a gangster, Wheeler (Paul Richards) who's recently robbed a bank, escaping with $210,000 but killing a bank guard in the process. Bored with his life, Paul falls for her hard even when she figures out he's a cop. Upset with her situation of an absentee boyfriend, Lona similarly falls for Paul. Paul's precinct is working a stakeout in hopes of catching Lona's boyfriend, putting Paul in an interesting predicament. He comes up with a plan though, leaving his whole life behind him, taking the money if Wheeler shows up, and starting life over with Lona. Nothing comes easy though.

As a film noir, this has all the requisite pieces from the shadowy setting to the femme fatale in Novak to the anti-hero looking out for himself. Making her film debut, Novak is a bright spot as Lona McLane, the gangster's girlfriend frustrated with her situation. The 21-year old beauty was always gorgeous, but director Richard Quine shoots her like an angel....albeit one with a manipulative streak. Drop dead gorgeous came to mind anytime she was on the screen. Also a positive is the opening bank robbery, a silent sequence interrupted by gunfire. The early portions of the movie are especially good, MacMurray and Novak getting away with some risque scenes (for the time at least).

But as things start to develop with the gangster, the girl and the cash, my problems with MacMurray arose once again. I just don't buy him as a bad guy. Check that. He's not a bad guy, just a weak good guy who makes some epically bad, stupid decisions. The reviews pointed out that Novak manipulates MacMurray's Paul into stealing the stolen money, but I didn't see that. He is attracted to a younger, beautiful woman and sees a whole new life through her. The Paul character is still too much of a weakling though, and I had trouble buying him in the lead role. The other police officers include his partner, McAllister (Philip Carey), who's looking for a wife, Lt. Eckstrom (E.G. Marshall), the officer in charge, and Dolan (Allen Nourse), the veteran cop nearing his retirement and pension.

Once MacMurray's plan hits the fan, the story picks up to a pretty breakneck pace. It is 1954, and the Hollywood movie code still dictated that bad guys got their due. So in other words, once Paul starts making bad decisions, there's no end in sight. One mistake rolls onto another one, especially when Lola's neighbor (Dorothy Malone) sees Paul coming out of her apartment. It's only a matter of time before Paul's flimsy house of cards comes tumbling down, and when he does it is epically bad.

I should mention one thing though that ranks up there with MacMurray as some major issues in this 1954 film noir. A stakeout isn't exactly an exciting visual experience. Instead of spicing it up, Pushover actually shows it in all its excruciating detail. In an 88-minute movie, we get uninterrupted shots of policemen looking through binoculars, officers walking to a car and changing positions with other officers, that sort of thing. Pretty exciting, huh? Yeah, you bet. On the whole, the movie is pretty decent, but the negatives are hard to avoid.

Pushover <---TCM trailer/clips (1954): ** 1/2 /****

The Tanks Are Coming

In the midst of a directing career that saw over 30 feature films, WWII veteran Sam Fuller did his fair share or writing too, much of it is based in war stories and sometimes his own experiences. Fixed Bayonets and Merrill's Marauders are underrated classics, and The Big Red One is a direct retelling of Fuller's tour of duty in WWII with the famous division. His writing efforts aren't always remembered as well, but as was the case with 1951's The Tanks Are Coming, the talent is obviously there.

This WWII movie comes in the same year as two other Fuller flicks, Fixed Bayonets as I mentioned before and also the underrated and underappreciated The Steel Helmet.  It's tough to compare three different movies released in such quick succession, but 'Tanks' is probably the weakest of three.  That's not to say it is a bad movie. Far from it, it's pretty good overall.  The positives come from the Fuller story the screenplay is based on. It is cliched, but it never goes as far as flag-waving thankfully.  It is content to tell its story without pandering.

It is July 1944, just a month removed from the D-Day invasion. As the Allies prepare to unleash a spearhead right at the German lines, a tank battalion in the 3rd Armored Division readies itself to lead the attack. One of the advance tanks though is hit early on, the top sergeant killed.  A veteran tanker, Sgt. Sullivan (Steve Cochran), is transferred in to take over the tank and its surviving crew, picking up at the point of the column where they left off. Pushing his crew and his tank to the limit as they battle German forces, Sullivan rubs everyone the wrong way. His men believe he's a gung-ho hero seeking medals. His superiors think he's foolhardy and needlessly adventurous in combat. Is Sullivan pushing too hard, or is he just trying to make his men the best they can be?

As part of TCM's Memorial Day marathon a few weeks back, I caught this generally forgotten WWII movie for the first time. Part of the reason it gets lost in the waves of WWII pictures has to be the cast, generally a bunch of unknowns and supporting players.  Sullivan's crew includes Paul Picerni as Kolowicz, the machine gunner who clashes immediately with the sergeant, George O'Hanlon (later George Jetson's voice) as Tucker, the tank driver who can't get enough booze, Eugene Baxter as Marconi, and Robert Boon as Heinie, a German-American soldier with an agenda. Oddly enough, Baxter and Boon aren't even credited, especially odd when you consider how much they're in the movie. Among the tankers there's Ike (James Dobson), maybe the most annoying pip-squeak of a soldier ever, and Lemcheck (Harry Bellaver), the grouchy mechanic. Fuller fans will notice the director/writer's trademarks, using the names Kolowicz and Lemcheck in many of his movies.  

Looking through his filmography, I can say I've seen Cochran in several movies, but he didn't leave much of an impression obviously. This was an interesting part for him in a role that's a staple of the war movie genre.  He's that tough sergeant, damn good at what he does and dead-set on instilling everything he knows into his men.  His Sgt. Sullivan doesn't care much whether his men like him or hate his guts, as long as they do their job and stay alive, he's pleased (even if he'll never let on or show that). Other than an odd accent that sounds half Irish and half drawling Southerner, this was an interesting lead character. The story softens Sullivan up a bit by the end unfortunately, but it's not exactly a surprise. SPOILERS STOP READING SPOILERS I thought for awhile Sullivan would get killed in the end, but I guess for a B-movie in 1951 it just wasn't in the cards END OF SPOILERS

Directed by Hollywood veteran Lewis Seiler, 'Tanks' is an odd mix of elements all things considered. It isn't a patriotic flag-waving movie like so many WWII stories released in the years following the war's conclusion. On the other hand, it isn't cynical or overly dark. I think it finds a nice middle ground. 'Tanks' never glamorizes the war, the fighting, the combat. The soldiers aren't indestructible superheroes. They gripe and complain, they fight amongst each other, and mostly they just want to survive and go home. For a lower budget movie, the scale is somewhat limited, but a good mix of stock footage (edited in pretty seamlessly) and actual action scenes keep things moving.  I think the movie would have gone up a notch or two if it had the guts to kill off Sullivan, but as is, the ending is still pretty good. Look for Philip Carey and Robert Horton as two commanding officers in the battalion.

For all the positive elements, there's also the negative. Dobson's Ike character is beyond obnoxious, and for some reason the camera keeps going back to him for comic relief.  It's never actually funny, but they keep trying. Ike and Lemcheck are on another tank crew, but they're always hanging around too, probably because Sullivan's crew isn't always that interesting.  Then there's Mari Aldon as Patricia, a war correspondent who has a past with Sullivan. She's in exactly two scenes, and isn't even around long enough to be considered a love interest. Just little complaints on their own, but they do throw off the tone and pacing a bit.

Not great but far from bad either.  Good story from Fuller, and a solid lead performance from Cochran. If you can track down a copy, it's worth a watch if not a purchase. A made-to-order DVD is available through the Warner Archive if you're dying to see it. 

The Tanks Are Coming (1951): ** 1/2 /****

They Rode West

Just four movies into his young career, Robert Francis tragically died at the age of 25 when a plane he was piloting lost power and crashed, killing him and another passenger.  His name hasn't bee remembered like others from the 1950s and 1960s who died long before their time, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a talented actor.  Maybe a little stiff at times, Francis still showed an ability to stand out from his co-stars in the four films he did make.

In just his second film after the success of 1954's The Caine Mutiny, Francis sticks with the army genre, albeit about 100 years before WWII.  The movie is They Rode West, a solid western that tries to put its own spin on the U.S. cavalry picture.  John Ford had already had his cavalry trilogy hit theaters and be a huge success, and in general, cavalry westerns tended to do well with audiences.  There is something iconic about a patrol riding across the horizon of the American west.  'Rode West' isn't told from the point of view of the soldiers though, instead it's the perspective of the doctor working with the soldiers.

Looking to get a chance to improve his doctoring skills and medical knowledge, young Dr. Allen Seward (Francis) enlists with the U.S. army and is sent to a frontier outpost where the cavalry is dealing with a possible Comanche and Kiowa breakout from their reservation.  The outpost's previous surgeons/medics were drunks and misfits so Seward arrives with little expectations from his fellow officers as to his ability.  One officer, Captain Blake (Philip Carey), particularly resents Seward as much for his beliefs about the Indians as his interest in Laura McKay (Donna Reed), the visiting niece of the fort's commander.  The problems escalate though when the Indians at the reservation contract malaria, and Seward is forced to make a decision; obey orders or do what he's sworn to do as a doctor.

Seeing a cavalry western from the outpost doctor/surgeon instead of the battalion commander or the veteran sergeant is a refreshing change in storytelling.  For one, Seward's naivete is appealing because he looks at things in a very black and white manner.  Someone's hurt or sick? I'd better help them. Oh, they're Comanche? I'll still help.  He isn't biased by prior judgments or preconceived notions on people just because of who they are or their culture.  This of course bites him in the ass with basically everyone in the fort because a recommendation he makes convinces a group of Comanches to leave the reservation and head for ground more suited to living.  Oops, my bad.

Francis' acting and delivery can be a little wooden, but I'm chalking some of that up to his voice.  He talks in an almost-stilted deep voice that doesn't differ much whether he's talking regularly, angry with an order, or trying to be smooth and get on Donna Reed's good side.  But even with all that, the character is likable because what he is doing is right no matter what anyone else tells him he should be doing.  Donna Reed does get to play against type here, sexing it up a bit as a bachelorette with a long list of suitors vying for her hand.  Carey plays the type of a-hole character you just hope gets shot in the face but of course...doesn't.  He argues for the sake of arguing and in general, you just hope he gets his comeuppance by the end.

Of course for all the good thing offered here, not everything works.  Seward communicates with the Indians through Manyi-Ten (May Wynn), a white woman taken captive many years ago who now lives as a squaw.  The good doctor seems genuinely perplexed that no one knows anything about her, and the duo even exchanges some glances that, uh-oh, they have feelings for each other.  But once Donna Reed comes back into the picture, it's game over for that relationship.  A fair amount of time is spent building up this possible relationship and then nothing happens.  One supporting character is a fixture in the cavalry movie, the veteran sergeant, played here by TV star Roy Roberts (I can imagine Ward Bond or Victor McLaglen playing the part).  He's a hard-drinking Irish sergeant and all the attempts at drinking humor come off as half-hearted and not funny in the least.

For a lower budget movie the action finale is surprisingly enjoyable if a little disjointed.  The fort is the same one Fort Apache was filmed at along with several other films -- you'll recognize the set.  The attack on the fort isn't on a large scale, but it isn't two or three soldiers firing at four or five Indians because a fair number of extras take part.  Violent but not graphic -- with one very cheesy squib used -- it's a fitting end to a good if not great B-western.

They Rode West (1954): ** 1/2 / ****