My TV Guide, with which I sometimes find myself in agreement, gave this three stars out of four and I thought, "Why not?" It wasn't a masterpiece. It had no poetry. It was worth three stars, I guess, if you consider the genre -- inexpensive Western with no bankable big stars. But, really, the plot is rudimentary and derivative. By 1957 the war movies had played themselves out, but this film simply transposes the story of a small heroic band of soldiers finally triumphing over a horde of savage enemy soldiers, only in this case the heroic soldiers are all women and the savage enemy is the Comanche instead of the Japanese or Germans.
It's the Civil War period and Colonel Chivington has just wiped out an Indian village. This brutality puts the white man in disfavor with the Comanche and provides them with a revenge motive. Lieutenant Audie Murphy deserts his command and rides to Texas to warn the settlers. He winds up at a decrepit mission in the middle of nowhere. It's occupied only by about two dozen women and a few kids. Murphy's job? To whip these women out of their winsome civilian ways and make soldiers out of them.
He designates the monumental Hope Emerson sergeant. The others he calls by their rank or their last names. He teaches them how to load and shoot a rifle. He teaches them martial arts. It's almost funny, the way Murphy goes around barking orders -- "Sergeant, you take the west window. Martin, go over to your post. The rest of you come with me." Even when the Comanche finally do show up there's something vaguely comic about the battle. The Indians ride in merry circles around the mission, like horses on a carousel. Even the gun shots and the wounds and the death are overdone to the point of absurdity, and it owes nothing to the jokes about exploding rifles. There is a kind of balked romance between Murphy and the rather pretty Kathryn Grant but it's dispensable.
None of the performances stand out, although Hope Emerson, who is roughly the size of the Colossus of Rhodes, is unforgettable as always. Man, you ought to see her in "Cry of the City." Whew.
The photography looks hasty, and probably was. The settings -- Old Tucson with its faux adobe walls -- is attractive enough, but there is a scene in which Sean McClory, as a cowardly traitor, is talking to his girl friend through the barred windows of a jail. The young lady is standing outside and is adequately lighted but McClory is in this dark dump and no viewer could help experiencing a susurrus of disquiet while thinking, "Hey, that guy in the jail has an orange light shining on him from inside!" What I mean is, it's pretty clumsy.
Overall, if you don't expect anything in the way of originality, it's a way to while away an hour and a half without feeling too much pain.
It's the Civil War period and Colonel Chivington has just wiped out an Indian village. This brutality puts the white man in disfavor with the Comanche and provides them with a revenge motive. Lieutenant Audie Murphy deserts his command and rides to Texas to warn the settlers. He winds up at a decrepit mission in the middle of nowhere. It's occupied only by about two dozen women and a few kids. Murphy's job? To whip these women out of their winsome civilian ways and make soldiers out of them.
He designates the monumental Hope Emerson sergeant. The others he calls by their rank or their last names. He teaches them how to load and shoot a rifle. He teaches them martial arts. It's almost funny, the way Murphy goes around barking orders -- "Sergeant, you take the west window. Martin, go over to your post. The rest of you come with me." Even when the Comanche finally do show up there's something vaguely comic about the battle. The Indians ride in merry circles around the mission, like horses on a carousel. Even the gun shots and the wounds and the death are overdone to the point of absurdity, and it owes nothing to the jokes about exploding rifles. There is a kind of balked romance between Murphy and the rather pretty Kathryn Grant but it's dispensable.
None of the performances stand out, although Hope Emerson, who is roughly the size of the Colossus of Rhodes, is unforgettable as always. Man, you ought to see her in "Cry of the City." Whew.
The photography looks hasty, and probably was. The settings -- Old Tucson with its faux adobe walls -- is attractive enough, but there is a scene in which Sean McClory, as a cowardly traitor, is talking to his girl friend through the barred windows of a jail. The young lady is standing outside and is adequately lighted but McClory is in this dark dump and no viewer could help experiencing a susurrus of disquiet while thinking, "Hey, that guy in the jail has an orange light shining on him from inside!" What I mean is, it's pretty clumsy.
Overall, if you don't expect anything in the way of originality, it's a way to while away an hour and a half without feeling too much pain.