Apachenschlacht am schwarzen Berge

"Oh! Susannah" is really a knockoff of several John Ford films. After the success of "My Darling Clementine" and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" Republic must have thought the public would accept any sort of rehash as long as the main theme and the title were a folksy ditty. Here we have John Wayne (Rod Cameron), Henry Fonda (Forrest Tucker), Ward Bond (Chill Wills), Grant Withers (Jim Davis), Victor McLaglen (William Haade), Maureen O'Hara (Adrian Booth), and even John Agar (James Lydon) wannabes. The climax is right out of "Fort Apache."

The action is often chaotic and diffuse, with Rod Cameron holding the film together through his understated acting style. "Oh! Susannah" shows glimpses of what Cameron might have done with a better story and production.

Rod Cameron stars as Captain Calhoun, a cavalry officer dedicated to protecting the rights of Indians from greedy gold prospectors. Calhoun's superior officer Lt. Col. Ungar (Forrest Tucker) despises all Indians, and makes things difficult for those who try to enforce existing treaties. Other interested parties include saloon owner Ira Jordan (Jim Davis), who is counting upon plenty of revenue from the prospectors, and saloon thrush Lia Wilson (Adrian Booth), who carries torches for Calhoun, Ungar and Jordan. An anticipated climax comes with a vengeance as the betrayed Indians attack Ungar's fort.

Oh! Susanna is a fairly ambitious western with lavish production values and good acting, especially by Forest Tucker who as a head of a Fort has a giant-sized chip on his shoulder and is egging for a fight with the Sioux. Jim Davis joins him as a negative character, also egging for a war - they both clash with Rod Cameron's captain character, a West Point man, who is trying to quell a war with Sioux, over a treaty and a woman ( Lorna Grey). It's a fairly good western with enough conflict, dialogue and action - the latter comes in the last twenty minutes with a rousing injun attack.

Overall, Oh! Susanna is entertaining, though the title is wrong as there's no link to Susanna, except that the song appears briefly in "The End". Not sure why it was called that - maybe the filmmakers wanted something unexpected and original.

Cameron is capable as the Calvary Commander defending settlers from the Sioux. Much of the story centers on the tension among fellow officers at the outpost. Warren, who directed superbly for Lippert (Little Big Horn 1951)seems to have lost some of his edge in this story, but it is still worth catching.

This has got nothing to do with anyone called Susanna. There is no Susanna in the film. Dumb title.

The US cavalry patrol the mountains to prevent gold prospectors from exploring and getting into trouble with Sioux Indians. As a consequence, they don't see eye to eye with local cowboys who are also interested in gold prospecting.

The story is pretty aimless and doesn't really go anywhere until we have the final battle with the Indians and this end sequence almost rescues the film. It just doesn't quite do it thanks to the bland characters that we have spent our time with up to that point.

The sound quality isn't very good but the film does score points for the outdoor settings and cavalry v Indian sequences. We get all the clichés - bar-room brawl, etc and the leading lady sings a song which is terrible. Cowboys want to hear an uptempo number and so do we as an audience. All Western saloon songs should be quick-paced with a catchy tune and colourful, cool outfits for the girls to dance along in. Not the nonsense served up in this film.

Overall, it's a "not quite good enough" for this effort.

The U.S. cavalry has the task of keeping white settlers out of the gold-rich Black Hills, thus maintaining a treaty with the Indians, the storyline of which has been done in countless other westerns. Rod Cameron and Forrest Tucker and Jim Davis head a good cast, but character development gets the edge over action and prevents the film from being a cut above the norm. Cameron and Tucker have starred together in other western films and their pairing always results in mutual dislike and creates tense moments. Chill Wills has several good scenes as a cavalry sergeant and the film has excellent technicolor values. There is a good cavalry-Indian skirmish but the slow, meandering plot development of angry and greedy citizens who want to ignore the treaty and mine gold deposits on Indian land results in an average movie.