Sierra

This lesser known Western film features WWII hero Audie Murphy as a young Mountain dweller on the hideout for years with his Dad , played by the great Dean Jagger. As Murphy is forced to confront Horse Thieves and Town crooks, he demonstrates once again that fierce toughness we so often see in all his roles.

The great Burl Ives is terrific as a singing troubadour friend of Murphy. The outdoor cinematography is stunningly beautiful and we are also treated to early screen appearances by young Tony Curtis and James Arness as two rough and tumble bad guys. Lotsa action and cool dialogue.

The storyline is solid, though a little familiar. An enjoyable film and a treat for those fortunate enough to see this rarely shown film !!

This is not one of Audie Murphy's better known movies. In fact, hardly anyone has heard of it. I saw it once many years ago, and fell in love with it. I really enjoyed Burl Ives performance also. I have wanted a copy of this movie for my colldection for a long time.

Sierra is an unpretentious little western that paired Mr.&Mrs. Audie Murphy at the time, Audie and his leading lady Wanda Hendrix. Audie is cast in the first of many roles as a callow western youth who was raised by his father Dean Jagger who is a fugitive from the law.

Way back when Jagger was charged with the murder of Sara Allgood's husband and fled to the high Sierra country where he raised his son and now both make a living catching young wild mustangs of which there are plentiful in the Sierra foothills.

Hendrix is a rarity for the time, a female attorney who might gain acceptance back east, but in the rough and testosterone driven west is finding it hard to get clients. Audie and Dean might be the way to break into the man's world of the court, but both them are fighting their own sexist nature and don't take her advice.

There's a nice part in Sierra for Richard Robert who would die two years later in an automobile crash cutting short a promising career as a film villain. Tony Curtis has a small role as the son of another fugitive whose family teams up with Murphy and Jagger.

In his memoirs Tony Curtis says that soon afterward the tempestuous two year marriage of Murphy and Hendrix broke up. He tried to date Hendrix but Murphy was a jealous man with a bad case of post traumatic stress courtesy of the late World War and all the action where Audie Murphy became our most decorated soldier. Curtis describes himself as young and stupid and thinking not with his brain. He made it a point to avoid Audie for years afterward.

Best of all is Burl Ives, a hermit who lives close to Murphy and Jagger and who has some nice ballads to sing in Sierra.

Sierra is a nice western, made better with Burl Ives and his singing.

Audie Murphy and his aging, fugitive father Dean Jagger, live deep in the mountains, away from trouble. A chance encounter with lost lady lawyer Wanda Hendrix and a serious injury to Jagger sends Audie to town for the first time since he was a small boy, where he finds trouble with the law.

Striking locations, good photography, and a well-plotted story combine to make a fairly entertaining movie. Action scenes are handled quite nicely as well, especially the climax, involving a stampeding of hundreds of horses, back and forth between the good guys and the bad! The only problem with the movie is that the ending (satisfying as it was) is just a little too convenient.

An interesting cast includes Burl Ives as a singing mountain man and early performances from Tony Curtis and James Arness as brothers and part of an outlaw family hiding on Audie and Jagger's mountain

Meanwhile, Audie plays pretty much the same type of character you always see (and love to see) him playing, that of a young, angry, brooding, misunderstood young man, real-life traits, shaped by his service in World War II, that Hollywood seized upon and interestingly enough, inspired writer David Morrell to create the character of Rambo, a piece of trivia that makes seeing Audie elude a posse in the mountains all the more interesting.

An Audie Murphy Western from 1950. A woman (Wanda Hendrix) gets lost in the mountains & found by Murphy who escorts her back to his cabin blindfolded which he shares w/his father (Dean Jagger). It turns out Jagger was accused of murder years before & rather than face an unjust punishment, he hightailed into the hills w/Murphy where they ply their trade as bronco busters as they scoop up mustangs from the wild. During a taming session, Jagger gets hurt prompting Murphy & Hendrix (who was bitten by a snake) to go into town (using an alias so he can keep his identity safe) for medical help. Returning to the cabin, Murphy comes across some rustlers w/his wares who give him a beat-down setting up a final confrontation where Murphy (now running w/other accused desperadoes which include Tony Curtis) & the villains vie for a large passel of mustangs. Running a scant 90 minutes (typical of Murphy fare), this film suffers from a surfeit of back story & incident which is given short shrift but as a time filler it gets the job done. Burl Ives (most people will know him as the narrator of the perennial Christmas classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer) plays Murphy's town contact & gets ample opportunity to get his song on.