EFFB combines the themes of "Major Dundee" and "Dakota Incident", starting off with a Union prison camp for Confederates close to Indian territory and concluding with a disparate bunch of whites in a gully fighting off hostiles. And there's a touch of "Henry V" when flights of arrow soar through the air to descend on their targets.
By that stage the Indians were showing some sense, after several times riding past their enemies and presenting good targets to them, rather than swamping them in one frontal charge (but that would have ended the film early).
There has to be a glamorous woman in most films of this type, but Eleanor Parker added little. Improbably travelling as the solitary passenger in a stagecoach through hostile territory (and even more improbably with a wardrobe of designer gowns). Her only role seemed to be to pass a message to Captain Marsh (who curiously appeared at a ball in a smart Confederate dress uniform he'd somehow acquired after being captured).
But perhaps she did serve to befuddle Captain Roper, who suspiciously examined a pass given to the storekeeper, asked what was inside his wagon, but didn't think to look for himself. The Confederates in the wagon must have had one of the easiest escapes in film history (slipping under a simple fence inside the fort at night) though the last-minute addition of Carla, resplendent in a ball gown, did disconcert them.
Such weaknesses were common in Westerns of the 1950s, and EFFB is still an effective contribution to the genre of that period. The fort and scenery look good, and there's some satisfying fighting.
By that stage the Indians were showing some sense, after several times riding past their enemies and presenting good targets to them, rather than swamping them in one frontal charge (but that would have ended the film early).
There has to be a glamorous woman in most films of this type, but Eleanor Parker added little. Improbably travelling as the solitary passenger in a stagecoach through hostile territory (and even more improbably with a wardrobe of designer gowns). Her only role seemed to be to pass a message to Captain Marsh (who curiously appeared at a ball in a smart Confederate dress uniform he'd somehow acquired after being captured).
But perhaps she did serve to befuddle Captain Roper, who suspiciously examined a pass given to the storekeeper, asked what was inside his wagon, but didn't think to look for himself. The Confederates in the wagon must have had one of the easiest escapes in film history (slipping under a simple fence inside the fort at night) though the last-minute addition of Carla, resplendent in a ball gown, did disconcert them.
Such weaknesses were common in Westerns of the 1950s, and EFFB is still an effective contribution to the genre of that period. The fort and scenery look good, and there's some satisfying fighting.