The plot seemed promising if a little familiar: US Cavalry patrol in trouble; officers dead, sergeant (McCrea)in command of disparate group of soldiers, including the usually excellent Forrest Tucker, trying to get to safety. McCrea often plays pleasant characters - or characters pleasantly - but we suspect this is not the case when early in the film he slavishly - stubbornly - follows the patrol's original orders. But it's still a shock when he shoots a surrendering Apache in the stomach. (I've run the tape several times and I'm sure that during the short action at the watering-hole McCrea's bristles become a beard - presumably a continuity error, but it makes him look even tougher.) The problem with the film is the Private Travis character; he's a recruit, but very self-possessed, and soon the sergeant is confiding in him, which jarred a little. Travis is secretive about his past, and perhaps it would have helped had there been a little more revealed about him - a suspicion, say, that he had once been an officer, which might have made the sergeant's attitude to him easier to understand.
I don't like the contrived introduction of attractive young women into a men-only situation in films. Seeing that Susan Cabot had a high billing, I feared the worst, and thought she might turn up with the traders' covered wagon. In fact her appearance is towards the end, as a most unlikely-looking Indian girl, and then she has no effect at all on the plot and, indeed, none on the men. At least we're spared her being attacked by one soldier and saved by another.
Two largish groups of Indians converge on the "Fort Massacre" of the title, but some of these seem to have wandered off before the final encounter with the cavalry.
Forrest Tucker's screen presence usually makes him stand out in films, but in this one he's just another soldier.
I don't like the contrived introduction of attractive young women into a men-only situation in films. Seeing that Susan Cabot had a high billing, I feared the worst, and thought she might turn up with the traders' covered wagon. In fact her appearance is towards the end, as a most unlikely-looking Indian girl, and then she has no effect at all on the plot and, indeed, none on the men. At least we're spared her being attacked by one soldier and saved by another.
Two largish groups of Indians converge on the "Fort Massacre" of the title, but some of these seem to have wandered off before the final encounter with the cavalry.
Forrest Tucker's screen presence usually makes him stand out in films, but in this one he's just another soldier.