Ride Out for Revenge (1957)

Saddled with a ridiculously corny and over-talkative screenplay in which all the clichés of white men versus Indians are trotted out, plus the spectacle of Vince Edwards of all people playing the Indian chief's son, while the co-star of reasonably competent hero Rory Calhoun, namely Gloria Grahame, listlessly walks through a trite and entirely superfluous role, this is a movie to avoid. The director is a gent named Bernard Girard who worked mostly as a writer and director in TV. He just loves filling the screen with repetitive close-ups. In fact, the movie would be much more interesting if shorn of at least twenty minutes of this utterly boring material. On the other hand, most of the action footage is staged with reasonable competence and the use of some mildly attractive natural locations is at least a step in the right direction. Also on the plus side, Joanne Gilbert certainly lives up to her "Pretty Willow" name, while Frank DeKova manages to make his Indian chief reasonably credible. Lloyd Bridges, alas, has large slices of the script's verbosity to contend against, but at least he puts up a good fight.

More sensitive to the feelings of the Indian people than other films of the time, the watchable B Western "Ride Out for Revenge" has some good performances and a decent story to recommend it, even if it's heavy handed in pushing its message home and ultimately forgettable. It does take the viewer out of the movie to see obviously white people playing Indian characters, but then Hollywood still wasn't ready in 1957 to be truly politically correct.The stolid Rory Calhoun plays Tate, a marshal from the small town of Sand Creek who's sympathetic towards the local Cheyenne tribe. Of course, helping him to form that opinion is his love for Pretty Willow (Joanne Gilbert), the daughter of the tribes' chief Yellow Wolf (Frank DeKova). When the chief is cold bloodedly murdered by a gunman, it angers the chiefs' son Little Wolf (Vince Edwards) who leads his people in a raid. Even after suffering a personal loss during the raid, Tate finds that taking care of business is still a tough proposition.Calhoun is fine, Edwards amusing even in light of his miscasting, and Gloria Grahame makes the most of her not terribly important role. But the movie really belongs to a wonderful Lloyd Bridges, who's perfectly slimy as a racist, greedy, cowardly Cavalry officer. It's Bridges who keeps things interesting for the duration; surely a member of the Cavalry had never been portrayed in this negative a light before. Otherwise, nothing about this is anything special - not the direction (by Bernard Girard) nor the script (by producer Norman Retchin, based on a novel by Burt Arthur), although the music (by Leith Stevens) and cinematography (by Floyd Crosby) are nice.Overall, not a bad way to spend 78 minutes.Six out of 10.

A sheriff battles his gold hungry town and a cavalry captain who covet gold-rich Indian land.The movie's pretty unremarkable except for the cowardly cavalry captain (Bridges). Cavalry officers were generally not portrayed in such a negative light. But here Bridges tries hard, if not very persuasively, to be as craven as possible. The film came along at a time when Hollywood was beginning to recognize the Indians' side of the struggle over land. Thus their side gets a fairer treatment than had been usual. Calhoun plays an Indian sympathizer who tries to control the more bloodthirsty whites in the town. And, of course, he has an eye for the comely Indian maiden (Gilbert), who happens to look a lot whiter than he does. But then Hollywood never cast real Indian women as major romantic interests, even though they might use real Native Americans in all the other parts.I'm not sure why cult actress Grahame is in the film since her part appears inessential. I guess it was for marquee value, though her best years are clearly past. On the whole, it's a rather dull western, without the expected big shootouts, but with a lot of talk instead. Its heart is in the right place, but not much else, I'm sorry to say.

You might be tempted to watch this movie when you see that Gloria Graham is the female lead and that Lloyd Bridges costars. Don't make that mistake.This thing looks like a high school play. It's a "civil rights" Western, where the Indians are a metaphor for blacks in the South.OK message, but there is no art to this movie. Graham's part is nothing. Bridges has just a little more to work with, playing a sleazy, cowardly cavalry captain.This is a good opportunity though to categorize three types of Westerns:The "Cold War" Western, where the cowboys represent freedom and individuality, while the Indians are a foreign menace trying to take their freedom away. All that stands between freedom and destruction is the bravery of the U.S. cavalry.The "Civil Rights" Western, where the whites are the bad guys oppressing a racial minority.The "Vietnam" western, where the oppression of the Indians becomes a much wider metaphor for global Western imperialism and colonization.