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A stirring movie set in South Africa in the turbulent late 19th century , this is an African colossal with top-drawer cast . Stars Susan Hayward that in ¨I Want to live¨ , ¨The Snows of Kilimanjaro¨ and Tyrone Power that in ¨King of the Khyber Rifles¨, ¨Witness for prosecution¨ both of whom caused sensation , here in their most exciting roles . The story of a love that was greater than honor and race ; and a courage that stood alone against the fury of native rebellion on the veldt . Set in South Africa , half-legend , half-land ...alive and wondrous thanks to spectacular outdoors through the magic of sterophonic sound , big screen , and anamorphic lens . The great African landscapes , thundering path of empire, the fanatic rebels and the hordes of hundreds of Zulus . And the crowning spectacle of the woman who carved a saga of battle and love across the impressive African savannah . In 1847, when the great potato famine hits Ireland , due to this an Irish diaspora takes place , as hundreds emigrate other countries as America and South Africa . That's why among those leaving the Emerald Isle are Katie O'Neill (Susan Hayward) and her husband (Jon Justin) forced to flee and deciding that the promised land is South Africa and make their way there . Once there, they aboard a wagon train with several travellers fighting to establish the Dutch Free State . Along the way , they find out the hardships that are the reality of the homesteader experience on the veldt .Things go wrong and to complicate matters , Katie meets up with the love of her life , her old flame called Paul van Riebeck (Tyrone Power) who results to be the leader of a Dutch commando group .

An overwhelming period adventure with a cast of thousands and breathtaking battles . It is a rousing , moving , romantic tale , but rough-edged fare in ¨soap opera¨ treatment . Dealing with interesting issues , such as emigration to the troubled South Africa , imperialism , colonialism , racism and a loving triangle among an intimate trio : Tyrone Power/SusanHayward/Richard Egan . In a way , the flick is similar in vein to a Western , but transplanted in a South Africa setting . Susan Hayward outstands in an overacting , as usual ; she excelled herself in all kinds of melodrama , here is outrageously superb as what one critic wrote : a kind of Scarlett O'Hara on the veldt . Co-starts Tyrone Power as her love interest , being one of Tyrone's later movies , a bit later on , he would die while shooting in Spain : ¨Salomon and Queen Sabah¨ directed by King Vidor , being replaced by Yul Brynner , but still within his tradition of making adventure movies which spanned around the world . Power plays with some sensitivity and bravura the tough captain who commands a group of rebel Dutch . Tyrone Power gives a nice acting , as always .Tyrone seems to be more serious than the Swashbucklers or pirate movies he played when his good looks and swordmanship were both at their peak and much competition with Errol Flynn in the adventure stakes , such as : ¨Black Swan , The Zorro , Prince of Foxes , Captain from Castile and The Black Rose¨ . These enjoyable films were all well played by Power who was nearly at his most agile and deft style , as he starred various ¨Sword and Swagger¨ films and was superstar of Hollywood swashbucklers . Main starring are well accompanied by a frankly good support cast giving strong but brief performances from : Richard Egan , John Justin , Agnes Moorehead , Rita Moreno , Hope Emerson, Brad Dexter, Henry O'Neill , Robert Adler , Kevin Corcoran , among others .

It packs a colorful photography in Technicolor , in color de Luxe. Lavishly produced by Twentieth Century Fox Film Company , being enhanced by brilliant and glimmer cinematography by Leo Tover . Thrilling as well as sensitive musical score by maestro Franz Waxman . The motion picture was well directed by Henry King who was for many years associated with 20th Century Fox . He was an expert on adventure genre , a really versatile and reliable filmmaker of general entertainment movies . As Henry made ¨Stanley and Livingstone¨ , assisted uncredited in ¨Son of Fury¨ , directed the masterpiece : ¨The black swan¨ , and ¨Prince of Foxes¨ , the Biblical : ¨David and Bathseba¨ , ¨The snows of Kilimanjaro¨ and ¨Untamed¨ . As well as ¨Lloyd's of London¨ and ¨In old Chicago¨ .Rating : Decent adventure 6,5/10 . The flick will appeal to Susan Hayward and Tyrone Power fans .

I love "Untamed," but not in the same way as previous commentators. It is arguably the dumb-funniest piece of Hollywood formulaic crap every produced. Basically, Henry King remade "Gone With The Wind," set it in South Africa using standard Western gimmicks. Christ, they must have raided "Gunfight at OK Corral's" wardrobe, and cocked every cowboy hat on one side. But the joke's on them because it is such overwrought camp that I can't stop laughing. It's great! I especially love the way Susan Hayward keeps dumping, picking up, and re-dumping every sap who comes along. Plus, this chick's got to be the luckiest woman on the face of the earth. Nevermind the nasty image of her swindling starving natives by trading her worthless junk for their precious metals. Who else but a "Wild Irish Rose" stumbles upon a diamond the size of a goose-egg? And when the money runs out (no one knows why), she intrepidly sets off with her brood to mine for more gems, murderous claim-jumpers notwithstanding. Tyrone Power used this film as a practice session for "The Sun Also Rises." He's limp throughout. Richard Egan, however, is hilarious as Hayward's ubiquitous dumpee. He defends her against attacking Zulus. She dumps him. He offers to marry her. She dumps him. He plows her fields, plants her crops and builds her house. She not only dumps him again, but amputates his leg! In the end, Egan turns outlaw, still carrying a torch for Hayward. It is here that Rita Morena, the long-suffering half-breed wench, delivers the coup de grace: "...WHAT'S LEFT OF HIM IS MINE!"

20Th Century Fox produced and released some epic motion pictures in Delux Color and CinemaScope in the 1950's such as The Robe, The Egyptian.Untamed was one such movie with would be advertised as monumental and sweeping in it's scope.. The story of a young women named Katie O'Neill Kildare born of the Irish landed gentry who loses everything in the Irish Potato Famine of 1847. She and husband Sean migrate to South Africa and join Boar pioneers to become part of the Great Trek and help settle the Orange Free State.

Susan Hayward was queen of the 20TH Century Lot at that time and got first pick of any of the roles that the studio had available. She hoped Untamed would be her Gone With the Wind and any resemblance between Katie and Scarlett O'Hara is purely intentional.Fox matinée idol Tyrone Power is Boar military commander Paul Van Riebeck who is sort the Ashley Wilkes of this tale and Katie pursues him as Scarlett pursues Ashley.Richard Egan portrays Kurt Hout a Boar settler who is in lust with Katie and is always more then willing to play the chump for her. Agnes Moorehead and Hope Emerson were two of my favorite Hollywood...er.. ah...actresses and their involvement in any film always upgraded it's quality.

Veteran director Henry King was 20TH Century Foxes top drawer helmsman and a personal friend of Powers. He ha also directed Hayward in several of her best films.King kept the story very visual.

Untamed starts out with a bang.Paul Van Riebeck comes to the O'Neill Estates in Ireland to purchases horses from Squire O'Neill , Katie's father.Paul and Katie dislike each other at first so you know that they will soon passionately in love with each other. Paul can't let his feelings for Katie interfere with his duty to his cause so he returns to South Africa to resume his mission, leaving Katie heartbroken. Like Scarlet, Katie just isn't used to being dumped by a man.So it's not surprising that when the opportunity presents itself shes off to South Africa with her husband and child in tow to... start anew.

For me the best part of Untamed is the trek and the Zulu attack. This segment is dramatic, exciting and beautify filmed. After the Commando's rescue of the wagon train,however, the story slides into soap opera and becomes fairly predicable. A good film for Hayward and Henry King fans with one of Egan;'s better performances and of course Agnes Moorehead and Hope Emerson.

'Untamed' could and should have been good. Have always loved adventure films, with splashes of drama and romance. All the cast members have been great in other things, having seen a number of Tyrone Power films recently. Henry King did a fair share of good and more films, cannot sing my praises of 'Song of Bernadette' enough. Have always loved Franz Waxman as a composer, both his film scores and his concert music arrangements.

Although there is a good deal to like here, 'Untamed' came up rather short and was something of a disappointment. It looks wonderful and has some great scenes, but the cast are mixed, the characters never really connected with me and it does suffer badly from trying to do too much. 'Untamed' can never be accused of not trying, if anything it tries too hard and everything that sounded so interesting on paper is not done enough with.

There are a fair share of good things here. The production values are truly lavish with all of the photography leaving me in awe, the best of it is absolutely stunning, and the settings certainly looked as though a lot of time and money went into them. Waxman's score has a lot of rousing character and sweeping lushness without being over-bearing. King's direction has some inspired moments.

Namely in the well-staged action-oriented sequences. The zulu attack stuck with me. The cast were mixed, but some come off well. Richard Egan is charismatic and feisty, as is Rita Moreno, and John Justin is imposing. Ever the consummate scene stealer, Agnes Moorehead is always guaranteed to make any film she appeared in better and that's the case here.

It is a shame that Tyrone Power doesn't have an awful lot to work with and is quite bland. Susan Hayward overplays her role and comes over as very annoying. As said the characters didn't connect with me in that none are interesting or worth getting behind, plus they are ones with muddled and under-explored character motivations that don't ring true. Hayward's character writing and acting was so overdone that it was hard to believe that anybody saw anything in her, Power's has so little to it and although Egan does do a fine job in his role his character's too much of an idiot.

While King's direction has moments, it could have done with more tension and urgency in other places. The script came over as both over-stuffed, from trying to cram too much in, and undernourished, from not doing anywhere enough with the material. Which was true for the story too, really liked the action but generally it fails to excite or charm, the romantic chemistry is off because of not being able to care for the characters and there is too much content and too much of it glossed over.

Not bad overall, but a disappointment. 5/10

With the end of the South African apartheid government and the events leading to that end of the past 50 years or so, Untamed was consigned to the 20th Century Fox vaults and has rarely been seen for a generation. Not that it was anything all that great to begin with.

Taken on its own terms and divorced from racial politics, Untamed is a sprawling Edna Ferber like saga of the founding of the Orange Free State and the journey of that group of Dutch settlers called Voortrekkers that made it happen. Tyrone Power is the leader of this group who has dreams of an empire. Dreams so big that Susan Hayward and their romance come in a definite second.

Power meets Hayward in Ireland where he's come to buy horses and the sparks fly at first sight. But he returns to South Africa and Susan marries good old reliable John Justin.

Later after the potato famine hits Ireland, the great Irish diaspora occurs and the Irish scatter throughout the globe. John and Susan go to South Africa and Sue not only meets Power again, but she also comes under the lustful eye of Richard Egan. Justin is killed, Sue wants Ty, Richard wants Sue, but Sue can't see him for beans.

I get the impression that there is a lot more to the original novel than what is shown here, but the story is poorly adapted. Using the comparison to Ferber, Richard Egan plays the Jett Rink part here. It's as though Jett Rink was crushing out on Scarlett O'Hara. Maybe they should have gotten Edna Ferber herself to adapt this work by another author, Helga Moray.

The action sequences are done well however. The Zulu attack on the laager is as well staged as in any John Ford western and the final battle between Power's commandos and Egan's outlaws is also exciting.

By the way the word laager is the South African term they gave for the circle of wagons that the voortrekkers made when camping for the night. We've seen many a western where they circled the wagons, but in South Africa they had a name for it. Voortrekker is the name of the Dutch pioneers who made the journey.

If you are a fan of the two leads as I am, make every effort to catch Untamed in the infrequent times it is shown.