Fort invincible

Only the Valiant isn't a great movie, but it is a good one. It is sluggishly paced however, with some parts that feel drawn out, and there were times when the direction was lacking. That said, Only the Valiant is very well shot, the black and white cinematography looks good, and the scenery is authentic. Also good is the score, which is suitably rousing, the script is decently structured and the story is interesting while taking inspiration from Fort Apache and Red River. The acting ranges from decent to very good; I am not a huge Gregory Peck fan(I sometimes find him dull) but he does a good job as the ruthless and tight-lipped martinet officer, and Barbara Payton is luminous and pretty as Cathy. Ward Bond, Gig Young and Jeff Corey are much more impressive though. Overall, not perfect, but worth the look. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This is a luminously photographed and unusually well-written western by veteran creator of "Rawhide" Charles Marquis Warren. Direcxtor Gordon Douglas is its chief help in this regard. Its strong plot line can be told in a few sentences. A hard-nosed by-the- book, Cavalry officer, Captain Richard Lance, captures a leader of the Indian enemy after a massacre at a fort. He insists on bringing the man back for trial, to be sent toTucson; his commander sends another man to try to take the prisoner for trial and the patrol is wiped out. This means the leader has escaped, and Lance must now lead a second patrol--and he picks the men the fort can most spare, a company of problems-- to defend the advance fort that had been wiped out and save the command from another attack by stopping up the bottleneck pass in that sector. As Lance, young Gregory Peck is quite strong. Other in the large cast of this film which really shows life at a cavalry outpost looking like an army establishment of heterogeneous and quarreling types includes War Bond powerful as a hard-drinking sergeant, Neville Brand and Steve Brodie as troublemakers, Warner Anderson and Lon Chaney Jr. as psychological troublemakers and Gig Young, Art Baker, Herbert Heyes as fellow officers with Nana Bryant as the Colonel's wife. Even Barbara Payton as the love interest gets by in a difficult role; Michael Ansara is the captured war chief, and Jeff Corey plays the Fort's scout. There are really two great scenes in this very-well-made western--the long section at the fort before the last patrol is sent out, and that long patrol to the doomed Ft. Defiant itself. Once at that fort, Peck gets to deliver a grand speech in which at the demand of the men he has lined up for orders, he tells them each why he took them along. reading them their shortcomings one by one; they then tell them why they think he sent his best friend to die in his place take the Indian in instead of going himself-- and he proves them wrong for the remainder of the film by winning his lonely battle through intelligence and courage. The music by Franz Waxman is good, the production qualities admirable; the argument about what would happen if Lance takes the war chief in happens to be true; other than this unsolvable mistake by the central character, this is is great western. it has been a favorite of mine for fifty years.

The more desperate his fight on the desert's scorching sands , the more adored he was in her arms ¡ . Gregory Peck as captain Lance who gave Fort Invincible his name ¡ . Richard Lance (Peck) is a honorable cavalry officer to roust renegade troopers and a tribe of Indians Apaches . Cavalry captain is saddled not only problems with Native American but irritability among his own undisciplined troops . Lance is wrongfully framed by his girlfriend (Barbara Payton) and underlings of killing lieutenant Holloway (Gig Young) massacred along with a patrol by Indians . Richard Lance eventually puts the bridle on tight and struggles to win his soldiers respect while warding off violent Indians. Richard along with a group of soldiers have to defend a left fort surrounded by Indians until arrival reinforcements who are using a Gatling machine gun . The angry Apaches (led by Michael Ansara, usual in Indian roles) are out on a rampage of killing , seeking vengeance against the white intruders, and with the aim for eliminate them.

This is an acceptable , conventional tale with action galore about a hard-bitten officer who goes to hell and back while assembling a detail of misfit cavalrymen to hold-off rampaging Indians and later on regaining the respect of his soldiers and his sweetheart . Gregory Peck and a top-notch all-secondary-star-cast as Ward Bond, Steve Brodie , Warner Anderson , Neville Brand , Jeff Corey and Lon Chaney Jr as the Arab ; all of them shine in this gripping story about a surrounded garrison . Furthermore as protagonist girl appears Barbara Payton ( who acted in important films as Dallas, Drums in the deep South , Kiss Tomorrow) , she turned to be one of the saddest stories from dark chronicle Hollywood . Attractive blonde sexpot and her life eventually disintegrated,mostly by her own doings . She was the subject of a spread in Confidential Magazine in the early 1950s when then fiancé Franchot Tone allegedly caught in bed with Guy Madison . Tone later married her , despite the indiscretion, besides she had a tempestuous relationship with Tom Neal. But happened the downfall , her once enticing countenance now blotchy and once sensational figure now bloated,Barbara sank deeper into the bottle and had several brushes with law , among them public boozy , bad checks and ultimate prostitution . The 39 years former star was found on the bathroom floor.

Director takes a fine penned screenplay creating a cavalry-Indians tale that is far from ordinary , exploring the anguish of soldiers and including jarring burst of violence , however it packs a predictable ending . It's the habitual theme about an unit stranded by enemies and their grueling efforts to break the siege, issue imitated many other times . Gritty and passable written Western from Edmund H. North and Harry Brown , based on the novel by Charles Marquis Warren ,also Western filmmaker .The picture contains nice moments though partially unsatisfying and disappointing for the reason of the deeply claustrophobic environment . Well produced by William Cagney , James Cagney's brother , this Western is predictable and conventional but entertaining. Thrilling and stirring musical score by the classic Franz Waxman . Cinematography by Lionel Lindon enhances the dark tones especially on the besieged fort .

The motion picture is professionally directed by Gordon Douglas . He's an expert on adventures genre as ¨Black arrow¨ and ¨Fortunes of Captain Blood¨ , both starred by Louis Hayward ; but he's mainly specialist filmmaking Western , his first was ¨ Girl rush (1944)¨ and in the 40s directed ¨Doolins of Oklahoma¨ and ¨The Nevadan¨ for duo Harry Joe Brown-Randolph Scott . He went on directing Alan Ladd's (as Jim Bowie) vehicles as ¨Iron Mistress¨ and ¨The fiend who walked west¨ which resulted to be a Western rendition to ¨Kiss of death¨. In the 50s he proved his specialty on Western in the films starred by Clint Walker as ¨Fort Dobbs¨ ,¨Yellowstone Kelly¨, ¨Gold of seven Saints¨ and about legendary bandits as ¨Doolins of Oklahoma¨ and ¨Great Missouri raid¨ . After that , he filmed ¨Chuka(1967)¨ that bears remarkable resemblance to ¨Only the valiant¨ , the remake ¨Stagecoach (1966)¨ , ¨Rio Conchos¨ with Richard Boone and considered the best Western and finally ¨Barquero(1970)¨with Lee Van Cleef and realized in Spaghetti style.

Made a couple of years after Ford's 'Fort Apache' (1948), in some ways Douglas' violent film is reminiscent of that earlier work. Gregory Peck's straight-backed Captain Lance, the unpopular stickler for honour and adherent to all the fine print of duty, recalls Ford's military martinet Lieutenant Colonel Thursday (Fonda). There's a significant difference of course: Lance has a quiet competence throughout (and grudging respect of the ranks) conspicuously absent in Thursday's command. And whereas Thursday's actions lead to disaster, Lance pulls off a successful mission. Corporal Gilchrist (Ward Bond, also in 'Apache'), grudgingly admits as much as he declines to shoot the Captain, maddened at the height of his personal whisky drought: Lance is "the only man who can get them through", faults and all. Like the narrow pass through which the Apaches must move to attack the fort, Lance works within a narrow confine of responsibility and honour which can be dangerously constricting.

Interestingly, for a film ostensibly full of action, much significance attaches itself exactly to the opposite. For instance, it is Lance's unwillingness to draw upon others to clear his honour that estranges him from the post and his girlfriend Cathy after the death of Lieutenant Holloway. Most importantly, it is Lance's 'failure' to shoot the indian chief at the beginning, immediately after the fluke capture, which precipitates the death of so many others (a fault corrected at the end when Lance uses a knife in the last struggle). The film suggests that it necessary to bend the rules sometimes to achieve more effective results (whether or not this includes condoning murder in cold blood of a captive is another matter) - and positions various disrupting influences against the Captain as way of demonstration of the checks and balances this involves.

Chief of these is Corporal Gilchrist, who rather steals the film -particularly in the light of Peck's characteristic dullness as an actor. It is Gilchrist who is present at the start of events, he who rounds out the film. It is he too, who provokes a rare yielding, as far as military rules are concerned, by Lance: the Captain allows him a surreptitious swig of whisky just before the final attack. A boisterous, womanising drunkard, Bond plays a character to the hilt familiar from Ford's 'cavalry trilogy' and other films.

The forces contrasting Lance's discipline, control and code of honour rang neatly and conveniently against him at the fort. A deserter, a drunkard, a frustrated bully, an irrationally violent man - these and others, are the small command aptly chosen by Lance (being those the army can "spare mostly easily") to support his mission. In effect, such a select rabble represent the dregs of the army. But also, the weaknesses and darkness which all men contain, and naturally it is these which Lance has to face and master, as much as holding the pass against more physical incursion.

Reflecting this intrigue, the film is naturally rich in character acting. Besides Bond's loud bluffness, one also relishes Chaney's satanic Kebussyan (his character definitely *not* a Fordian derivative!), and the grouchy bitterness of Neville Brand's sergeant Murdock. Much of the film's pleasure lays in such incidentals, especially as the events at the pass, when examined logically, hardly make military sense (Why don't the indians just attack in one go? Why do they keep retreating back through the pass when they have broken out?)

Douglas, who went on to make the superb 'Rio Conchos' (1964) and the minor cult item 'Barquero'(1970) made too few Westerns, and does a good, tough job in direction. His pacing and grasp of tension helps to mask over the glaring differences in geology between the studio's 'pass' and the real thing shot on location. Co-scriptwriter Brown was to write Hawk's masterpiece El Dorado. In short: recommended, but for a more complex and convincing portrait of the cavalry under command see Ford.

...I saw this movie when it first came out in France, in my hometown, 54 years ago, I was nine, and today I still remember each black and white frame, especially the black ones, because it was so tense, scary, those sneaking attacks through that dark pass in the mountain, the two soldiers, prisoners forced to fight each other by their captors, the last battle with the uncovering of the wagon with the Gatling in it firing away, the last fight between Peck and the chief, and the Happy End which let me take back my breath. I haven't seen it since then, and I don't know if it would be a good idea to see it again today, it was such a fabulous moment for the kid I was.