Fort Courageous (1965) User Reviews

Some merit, except at the end

[Marlburian · 5/10 · 15 November 2015]

Some scathing comments were appended to one version provided on Youtube and I feared the worst. But the wasn't too bad, apart from the last few anticlimactic minutes which others have commented on. The scenery was good and the fort looked authentic enough.

Quite why two attractive women were travelling on their own across such hazardous country I don't know, and the scout fired his revolver at fleeing Indians at the most optimistic range I've ever seen, even by Western standards; his eventual death was quite gruesome for the time when the film was made.

For once, none of the actors was known to me but they all did well enough.

Tempted almost to give it a six, but five will do.

No closure to this movie.

[kfo9494 · 5/10 · 26 January 2017]

Was a wet afternoon and thought I would watch one of those free movies on the internet. Since I like westerns, this was the first movie that displayed that I had not seen. So sat down and prepared myself for a movie that I was sure would be a low budget affair.

The movie started well as Fort Courageous came under attack from a large group of Indians. The Indians over-ran the Fort and then the scene changed to a patrol of Cavalry officers that was leading a court-martial Sergeant Lucas to the fort on their way to prison. It seems that Lucas was accused of a crime that he claims that he did not commit.

On the way they come across a group of Indians attacking a wagon that was occupied by a woman and her teen-aged daughter. Ms Tate and her daughter, Elizabeth, was on their way to settle down in a place that was free of trouble but instead found themselves surrounded and the young daughter raped by the Indians. The Cavalry came to the aid of the women but at the cost of the Captain that was on his way to become leader of the fort. They all began the long journey to the fort.

When arriving at the fort they find all the people, except for one Major, dead. Now they will become the hunted for the Indians that are stationed outside the fort and will have to deal with many situations.

This was not the best performed acting for a movie but the western genre did provided for some things to be overlooked. And as other have already said, the ending to this story was terrible. There is no closure to the main plot plus the lot of characters well-being in never finally determined. It was if the money for the production ran-out and they just needed an ending for the cheapest price possible. And I can say that they succeeded making a cheap ending.

Even with the poor acting, the story was not really that bad. If the movie had closure then this would have been a surprising view. Instead, it comes across as a class B movie.

The ending like the acting

[cockerspaniels3 · 4/10 · 4 June 2007]

The male leads were basically fine but the women and the Indians, such poor acting! I own 250 Westerns and this is likely the worst one. Enjoy Cavalry vs Indians and not filmed this way anymore. A weakness to buy this one. If viewed, make it a midnighter.

The ending comes up sudden and most unsatisfactory and silly.

Anyways, always good to see more Westerns released. Guess never a Western not worthy for a watch, even if need be a midnighter.

Rated it a 4. Struggled to say a 5 but that ending and poor acting! Worse if not a Western.

A recent release "White Feather" was much better and very acceptable.

Standard-Issue, Low-budget Cavalry Western With A Questionable Ending

[zardoz-13 · 4/10 · 23 June 2010]

Veteran B-movie helmer Lesley Selander knew a thing or two about directing low-budget westerns, but it looks like Twentieth Century Fox must have tampered with this 72-minute opus. This predictable but old-fashioned cavalry versus the Indians epic concerns an army patrol ordered to take a prisoner, Sergeant Anthony Lucas (Fred Beir of "Convict Stage"), to Fort Courageous where he will then be escorted to Fort Alcatraz to serve a ten-year stretch for raping a woman who was secretly a tramp. No, "Voodoo Island" scenarist Richard Landau doesn't resolve the issue of our hero's moral dilemma. Indeed, the woman who cried rape did because the sergeant refused her offer of sex. Another officer assures the sergeant that whatever charms the woman had to offer were not worth a decade behind bars. Anyway, a wrongly-accused cavalryman is clapped in chains and has to cross a hostile desert. Essentially, the filmmakers provide no closure about Lucas' rape sentence. The film doesn't clear him at the end. Consequently, our tarnished hero never gets his due despite the acts of heroism that he performs in transit to Fort Courageous.

Inevitably, our heroes enouncter a mother and daughter along the way, and the daughter appears to have been raped by the Indians. No, Selander doesn't depict the act of rape. The Indians throw her to the ground, surround her, and she screams in horror. It might have added a dimension of complication if we knew that the daughter had not been raped,except in her mind. She could have been a counterpart to the tramp that the sergeant encountered. Nevertheless, whatever the redskins did to the girl is the equivalent of rape in the mother's eyes as well as the daughter's eyes. The Indians attack the cavalry patrol and mortally wound the captain in charge. Sergeant Lucas takes over command. Our heroes plod through the desert with the son of an Indian chieftain as their hostage and drink themselves dry before they reach the eponymous fort.

Little do they know that virtually everybody in "Fort Courageous" died in the first scene. More than half-way through the Indian attack on the fort, Selander and Landau cut to the main credits and put it up with the patrol scheduled to deliver Lucas. Lucas' old pal, Indian scout Joe (Harry Lauter of "The Satan Bug"), tries to give him a chance to escape to Mexico, but Lucas amounts to the epitome of virtue. He refuses to run away. Mind you, we never see the woman that destroyed his life. Captain Howard (Don 'Red' Barry of "Shalako") is the sole survivor of the massacre. Left for dead, he manages to open the forts and then behaves like a martinet. He wants Lucas put back in chains and hangs out the Indian chieftain's son (Michael Carr of "War Party") to bake in the sun. Of course, Sergeant Lucas refuses to tolerate this brutal, inhuman behavior, and cuts down the poor Native American, only to face Howard's wrath. When Howard tries to cut a deal with the Indians under a flag of truce with the son as his hostage, things backfire. The chief's son escapes and Howard barely eludes death, largely as a result of Lucas' intervention.

Unfortunately, "Fort Courageous" leaves a lot of questions unanswered. At the last minute, the mother of the daughter who was raped by the Indians decides to commit herself to Lucas and they share a screen kiss. Selander and Landau put our heroes and heroines between a rock and a hard place and then out of the blue, the movie concludes with a surprise ending that says something about the admiration that the Native Americans had for their opponents. Real Indians would have wiped them out. Harry Lauter has an unsavory death scene. He is run through with a wooden stake and the stake is set afire. The Indians leave him out in the open in front of the fort hoping that somebody will try to save the scout. Unless you enjoy old westerns, with a mite more violence than usual and some mature themes, "Fort Courageous" with its "Sergeant Rutledge" subplot isn't for you.

Noirish B-Western Hits The Mark, Until The Finale!

[FightingWesterner · 7/10 · 15 June 2014]

On his way to the military prison on Alcatraz, wrongly convicted soldier Fred Beir and his transport are attacked by marauding Indians. Barely making it to the fort, Beir and the rest of his men find it the site of a massacre and themselves surrounded.

One of the last of the old-fashioned studio B-westerns, this is a stark, grim affair, with some nasty bits of violence and torture, a weird preoccupation with sexual assault(!) and a mean performance by Donald "Red" Barry as the fort's commanding officer and lone survivor.

However, it drops the ball in the end, with a hastily tacked-on romance and a conclusion that's abrupt, painfully unrealistic and patently bizarre. Clocking in at a slim seventy-two minutes, there's really no excuse in the world for it to end so abruptly and so unsatisfactory!

Still, it's worth watching for the most part. There's some nice black-and-white photography and a grittiness that anticipates the wave of spaghetti westerns and their American counterparts that flooded US theaters the following year and pretty much ended the need for these kind of cheaply made westerns.

Fort Courageous

[coltras35 · 5/10 · 9 April 2023]

An ex-cavalry sergeant, being escorted to prison after being convicted of a crime he didn't commit, finds himself leading the remnants of a unit that has been under Indian attack at a fort. The commanding officer has been killed, the Indians vastly outnumber them, and the only bargaining chip they have is the fact that they have captured the Indian chief's son.

The Utah setting helps bring a sense of authenticity to the proceedings and some interesting character arcs injects some good aspects into the routine story of "besieged troopers holding out against overwhelming odds scenario". The hero - Beir's Sgt. Lucas - is a complex character. He's a prisoner accused of rape, but the fact that he's willing to lead the survivors through treacherous country speaks volumes of his innocence. It's downbeat at times, talky, ponderously paced, punctuated by some good action, but it's mainly character driven, though a little grim. Though Fred Beir acts very well, a more charismatic and spirited lead would have injected more energy into his character. The ending is abrupt, and the reason why the Apaches called a truce was weak, especially when they were winning. But hey it's 70 minute film so...

Surprisingly Good Little Western!

[bsmith5552 · 7/10 · 13 June 2007]

"Fort Courageous" was a largely forgotten "B" plus western until ti's recent release on DVD. It was ably directed by veteran "B" movie director Lesley Selander and has no major stars. Most of the players are recognizable character actors.

The film opens with the fort of the title under the command of Donald Barry, being besieged by Indians. We are left to believe that the occupants of the fort will not survive. Cut to the desert. Prisoner Fred Beir is being escorted to the fort for transportation to a federal prison for a rape which he did not commit. Along the way the group rescues a woman (Hanna Landy) and her daughter (Cheryl MacDonald) from the Indians. The boozy doctor (Walter Reed) does what he can between gulps of whiskey.

The Indians attack the group and run off most of their horses. The commanding officer is wounded forcing Sgt. Lucas (Beir) to take command. Led by scout Joe (Harry Lauter) the group starts out across the desert largely on foot. They are attacked by the Indians but manage to capture the son of the Indian Chief.

Finally, they reach the fort and find it littered with bodies. The commander (Barry) and a couple of soldiers has survived the earlier attack. Barry has gone slightly mad and is resentful of being forced to retire after 25 years. A romance develops between Lucas and the woman rescued on the trail.

Several Indian raid follow as they try to rescue the son of their chief. Gradually, the soldiers are being killed off. When all seems lost, the Indians group for a final attack.....or do they?

I must apologize for not naming more of the actors involved. IMDb didn't list most of the characters with the roles that they played. Many of the supporting players were unknown to me so I was unable to match them up with their roles. The Captain and the sea-faring sergeant are examples.

Donald Barry was better known as Don "Red" Barry from his years at Republic Pictures where he played Red Ryder in a 1940 serial. The name "Red" stuck. His performance as the mad major is excellent and his death scene is one of the highlights of the film. Fred Beir in probably his only starring role, was good as the hero. Harry Lauter appeared in many westerns both of the "A" and "B" variety, on both sides of the law. Walter Reed was a member of Director John Ford's stock company and you'll see him in many of Ford's films. Hanna Landy complete with thick accent is totally out of place as the romantic lead.

Shot back to back with "The Convict Stage" (1965) with largely the same cast.

One Of The Worst Westerns Ever

[januszlvii · 1/10 · 20 July 2023]

I watched Fort Courageous tonight on Tubi. I cannot overestimate how bad this movie is. First off it is a remake of Fort Bowie, and this is Exhibit A of why originals are better. Where do I begin? A mother and traumatized daughter after an Indian attack. All they did was knock her down and she wanders throughout the movie like she is on drugs. Then there is the mother who is absolutely a plain Jane unlike the beautiful Maureen Hingert in Fort Bowie. I should mention that Hingert who plays a half Mexican/half Apache woman is responsible for saving lives while this woman is nothing more then a love interest and a nothing one at that. Then spoilers ahead: Inexplicably the Indians let people live without explanation. Unlike the action scenes in Fort Bowie with Ben Johnson on a horse leaping into a Fort. Plus the problem the hero Sergeant has is being convicted of raping an officer's wife who threw herself at him ( he was innocent), and that plot line outcome was never addressed. Ben Johnson had the same problem but was not charged ( let alone convicted), and ended up with Maureen Hingert. Johnson who was a Captain in the movie had the goal of one day being a General but obviously being with a half Mexican/ half Apache woman it is not happening, but she chose him over her people so he can live with it. More importantly it is a better conclusion because he chose her instead of being a General and we know his fate and we do not know the fate of the Sergeant. This is one of these movies that does not have a single redeeming factor about it. I have to list it as one star. But really it is 0/10 stars. Go watch Fort Bowie ( featuring the beautiful Maureen Hingert) instead. You will be happy you did.

Hell of a good western

[searchanddestroy-1 · 9/10 · 7 August 2022]

Probably among the best of Lesley Selander, who also gave us good films such as RIDING SHOTGUN and other "Fort" films, mostly in the late fifties and early sixties. So this western is a good surprise from a B film maker; Lesley Selander was not John Ford nor Henry Hathaway, and for this reason I was so amazed by the character study and also some directing good ideas. Some torture sequences which were not so far from great director Bob Aldrich for ULZANA'S RAID or a John Sturges's film. Don Red Barry is also excellent in this role of an old timer, a vet soldier about to get retired. Yes a damn pretty good B western. In the early sixties, there were many of this kind, most made by the likes of Lesley Selander, RG Springsteen, Harry Keller, William Witney, Bill Claxton, George Sherman.... You can also have here some kind of Gordon Douglas' CHUKA perfume, atmosphere....