A Distant Trumpet (1964)

Although no one would ever confuse Troy Donahue with John Wayne, Donahue does acquit himself well in A Distant Trumpet which turned out to be Raoul Walsh's final feature film.Donahue who made his bones in Hollywood playing mostly decent All American type young men. Here he's a fresh West Point graduate assigned to an Arizona frontier post where the army is busy subduing the last of the great Indian tribes, the Chiracauhua Apache. He's under the command of General James Gregory who was a mentor to him at West Point.In addition to fighting Indians Donahue has a romantic dilemma. He's engaged to Diane McBain who is Gregory's niece. But on the post now is an old flame Suzanne Pleshette who is married to fellow officer William Reynolds. Donahue has a similar dilemma faced by John Wayne in Fort Apache. As with the Duke, Troy behaves in an honorable fashion. In fact in his private affairs he's honorable if very tempted.Take note of a good performance by Judson Pratt as a superior and sympathetic officer to Donahue's plight and a really rollicking and unforgettable one by Claude Akins who is quite the flesh peddler to both the red and white race.A Distant Trumpet is not as sentimental as John Ford's cavalry westerns. But Raoul Walsh ended his career with a good one.

Having watched quite a few B-Westerns lately it is obvious that this film had much more money spent on it; rather than a small cast and obvious California locations it has a large cast and is clearly filmed in the area it is set; this obviously benefits the film... it is also about half an hour longer than those B-films and I'm not so sure that is to its advantage. Set in 1883, later than many westerns, the Indian Wars are almost over; only a few renegades hold out over the border in Mexico from where they can strike with impunity. Into this situation West Point graduate 2nd Lt. Matt Hazard is sent to a remote border fort. Here he finds ill discipline and poorly trained men; while the acting CO Lt Mainwarring is away he takes it upon himself to bring the men up to the standard he believes is required if they are to survive combat with the Apaches of Chief War Eagle. After an incident where he rescue's Lt. Mainwarring's wife Kitty from the Indians the two of them grow close and when his fiancée turns up it is clear that she is jealous of Kitty. Inevitably there is a confrontation with War Eagle's troops but rather than ending in the expected military victory Hazard must follow War Eagle to Mexico with just an Indian Scout to talk War Eagle into surrendering by promising him that he hand his people will be free to live on a reservation in Arizona... a promise the government seem happy to break.I was somewhat surprised at the lack of a well known lead; Troy Donahue did a good enough job as Lt Hazard but didn't really have the presence I'd have expected, Suzanne Pleshette was a good leading lady although her role was fairly small. The highlights of the film were the numerous action sequences where large numbers of cavalrymen fought against a similar number of Indians; people were constantly being shot off horses and no amount of modern CGI can match the skilled work of stuntmen used in a film like this. For much of the film I thought the Apache were clearly meant to be the bad guys but I was pleasantly surprised that by the end they were depicted as an honourable foe and it was the apparently good US Cavalry who were behaving dishonourably... although obviously our hero stood up for the people he had negotiated a peace with. At nearly two hours the film did drag a bit and would probably have been improved if the romantic subplot had been lost; still it was worth watching and I'd recommend it to fans of the Western genre.

A Distant Trumpet is a Big Boring western with an excess of monotonous wide screen Calvary maneuvers. By the way I do so like a good western. In fact I appreciate some mediocre and cult "B" type westerns, but this movie was not even bad enough to be laughable; it was just boring.It's like the director was making a big movie that was suitable for preschoolers; no sex, no realistic violence, no believable fighting, limited dialogue. In fact the plot and dialogue was so limited that preschoolers could have played the parts.This was director Raoul Walsh's last film, he was 77 years old; maybe his age, health, mental and physical stamina had something to do with the lackluster result of this final production.A Distant Trumpet totally lacks drama; screen writers/director seem to have purposely limited character development and dialogue. The Indians were just there; you did not fear or feel sorry for them. The Indian fights were not believable. The deaths and injuries were staged and not believable. Calvary life was not believable. The whole cast was stiff and unbelievable. Suzanne Pleshette is the only one who had a moment or two where the audience could connect. On the whole it was stiff and there was no connection. Throughout watching this production, you never forget that you are watching a movie. The director must have been allergic to close-ups. Even the bad whiskey dealer and prostitutes were mere caricatures. This is an extremely disappointing production.

Bringing closure to the Apache hostilities on the Arizona frontier is the subject of this cavalry-Indian dust-up. William Clothier's wide screen CinemaScope camera captures the colorful vistas and expanses of the southwest where the battles take place. The casting of the picture is somewhat off-beat, from the heroic Matthew Hazard to the Latin-quoting General Alexander Upton Quait and finally, and tragically, to the cowardly Private Cranshaw. The Indian scouts serve the cavalry with bravery and dignity while their wild and fierce brethren ride the warpath a final time to hold on to their way of life. There is also a romantic triangle that complicates matters at the post. Director Raoul Walsh, an old hand at action westerns, serves up several Indian-trooper clashes and Max Steiner contributes a very nice score that is reminiscent of his earlier music in John Ford's legendary westerns.