Western fans remember a very fine Alan Ladd big screen film Drum Beat which
dealt with a true incident during the war with the Modoc Indians of Oregon and
Northern California. That incident is alluded to by Major Carleton Young who is
a firm believer that the only good Indian is a dead one and that goes double for
the Modocs.
Would this Wagon Train story be half as good as the Alan Ladd film. Assigned to Young's command is Clu Gulager an officer who is also an ordained minister. We're asked to believe he gets a combat assignment instead of the chaplain corps because he feels the calling to bring an end to the conflict between whites and Modocs.
Gulager is also a childhood friend of Duke Shannon and Denny Miller and Frank McGrath watch in somewhat disbelief as Gulager who has now resigned his commission and gone to live as a preacher among the tribe tries in his own way to make Christians of the Modocs. He's gotten them to take Christian names with Chief Hal John Norman as Chief Jeremiah and his daughter Lisa Seagram is now Esther.
I won't say more but Gulager's character is just plain ridiculous and Young's change of heart even more so.
What were they thinking at Revue Studios?
Would this Wagon Train story be half as good as the Alan Ladd film. Assigned to Young's command is Clu Gulager an officer who is also an ordained minister. We're asked to believe he gets a combat assignment instead of the chaplain corps because he feels the calling to bring an end to the conflict between whites and Modocs.
Gulager is also a childhood friend of Duke Shannon and Denny Miller and Frank McGrath watch in somewhat disbelief as Gulager who has now resigned his commission and gone to live as a preacher among the tribe tries in his own way to make Christians of the Modocs. He's gotten them to take Christian names with Chief Hal John Norman as Chief Jeremiah and his daughter Lisa Seagram is now Esther.
I won't say more but Gulager's character is just plain ridiculous and Young's change of heart even more so.
What were they thinking at Revue Studios?
