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This is one of those Westerns that has very stock characters and relies on the "fluff" of scenery and action.

The "fluff" is good. The fights look more like reality than the goofy choreographed ones for the bubble boys. People wrestle clumsily. The only comical fight is between the hero and wagon master, which has the look of a goofy choreographed fight of taking punches.

They seemed to want to make several characters work, but they are poorly written. The wagon master, played by John Russell, and the Strauss Indian agent were obviously meant to be the two "deep" characters, but they are written so horribly, that even clever acting and directing can only lure in the most brain dead.

A lot doesn't work here. The most perplexing plot hole is how a wagon train full of people is wiped out by Indians with legitimate anger, in such a fashion. They have trained cavalry men helping, and new repeating rifles. When it is over, there are only corpses and about ten healthy survivors, none with any serious wounds. Why they are left, one can't explain, unless they found a really good hiding place, but most of them were plainly in the middle of the melee. I can only surmise that at the end, the Indians kicked up horse dust to finish them off, and somehow the survivors found an air pocket. Best explanation I can give. However, this should have been explained.

What does work is the "normal" look of the leading characters. Even the heroine is no "model". She looks like any one else. These are ordinary looking people, and that gives an interesting look to a film that relies on the "interesting look".

Fort Utah is directed by Lesley Selander and written by Steve Fisher and Andrew Craddock. It stars John Ireland, Virginia Mayo, Robert Strauss, Scott Brady, John Russell, Richard Arlen and James Craig. Music is by Jimmie Haskell and cinematography is by Lothrop Worth.

Drifter Tom Horn (Ireland) teams up with Indian Agent Ben Stokes (Strauss) to help a pioneer wagon train against army deserters and Indian renegades.

Filmed in Technicolor/Techniscope out at Vasquez Rocks and Santa Clarita in California, Fort Utah, in spite of being shot in 1966, feels like a 1950s Oater. Of course the big giveaway is that the headliners in the cast are more long in the tooth than back in the day. Yet collectively they have produced a a very decent Oater with old fashioned value.

There's plenty going on in the plotting. The Indians have had enough of the reservation living arrangements so a renegade band have fled, leaving Ben Stokes the not unenviable task of trying to locate and placate. There's a gang of army deserters - The Marrauders - led by nefarious Dajin (Brady) out for what they can get their hands on, illegally of course. Right in the middle of hostile territory is a wagon train of pioneers who unbeknown to themselves are going to need help to survive, enter Tom Horn and the Fort Utah of the title.

Pic never wants for action, Horn gets into a fight pretty much every ten minutes, be it fisticuffs or shoot-outs, there's barely pause for him to take breath, well except for when he's getting smitten with Linda Lee (Mayo a gorgeous mature at 46) that is. She's travelling with the wagon train and has a secret as well as a major cleavage that gets an airing during a ferocious Indian attack on the wagon train. Whilst unsurprisingly she's getting unwanted attention by a scallywag pioneer fellow...

Some of the stunt doubles are very poor, which sort of sits with Haskell's cheesy musical score, and the big finale features a WTF moment to close down the encounter. But with some very nice photography for the night time scenes, and the superb backdrop of Vasquez Rocks pleasing the eyes, one can't grumble about not having it all. It's not a classic of course, and it has some formulaic baggage to carry around, but for old fashioned Oater lovers this has much to recommend. 6.5/10

John Ireland is Tom Horn, a famous gunfighter. Robert Strauss is Ben Stokes, a government agent for the Indians. Virginia Mayo is Linda Lee, an "Opera singer". And Scott Brady is Dajin, an army deserter who's wanted by the Indians. Oh, and then there's Jim Davis as Scarecrow, one of Dajin's men among others in the cast. I'm not a big fan of heroes attacking Indians since that usually means those Natives are being portrayed as savages but here, there's at least a reason they're not always friendly to the white men who are simply trying to survive. The fights between Horn and various of the villains attacking him are, however, quite entertaining the way they're choreographed. I also liked Ireland's dialogue with Ms. Mayo and his friendship with Strauss. Oh, and knowing about Davis' previous western roles as both bad and good guys and his later iconic role as Jock Ewing in the original "Dallas", he was the highlight of the picture for me. So on that note, I highly recommend this obscure oater, Fort Utah.

Fort Utah is another A.C. Lyles western with Hollywood's senior citizen crowd. By senior citizen we mean players past their box office prime. In this case the leads are John Ireland and Virginia Mayo.

The fort itself is a deserted army post, made empty by the fact that some real deserters led by Scott Brady killed the inhabitants and now are an outlaw gang. No one knows this yet because a telegraph is miles away. In the meantime Brady and his bunch massacre an Indian village filled with women and children. So the surviving braves of the tribe want his scalp, his hide, and any other functioning body part they can lay their hands on.

Ireland is famous frontier scout Tom Horn years before he met the fate described in the Steve McQueen classic. Ireland and Robert Strauss meet up and then both of them meet up with a wagon train headed by John Russell which train sustains an Indian attack. The survivors and Ireland and Strauss take refuge in the fort where they hoped to find live troopers. In any event it's a good place to stand off an attack from whomever.

Fort Utah moves at a good western clip with Lyles packing a lot of action in his short running time. The script and story left a bit to be desired, but the action is all any redblooded western fan could want.

A.C. Lyles produced a number of cheapie westerns in the 1960's, many of which featured former marquee stars that were approaching senior citizen status. This reformed gunman vs. the greedy villain follows that same, tired pattern. The writing and budget were poor.

Don "Red" Barry, John Russell and others were always at home in the saddle, but this low-budget, unchallenging western did not give them a whole lot to work with. The film had a lack of energy & freshness that failed to draw me in as a viewer.

Fort Utah is a mediocre film, that leaves you wanting more ........ Recommended for die-hard sagebrush fans only .