Cattle Queen of Montana

An unusual alliance is operating in the film Cattle Queen of Montana. Cattle baron Gene Evans and dissident Blackfoot chieftain Anthony Caruso have an arrangement of convenience. Evans provides whiskey and arms and in return Caruso makes sure the braves under his command raid and kill any settlers who come into the Montana valley that Evans wants to keep all to himself.

Of course they pick on the wrong party when they attack Barbara Stanwyck's party. She and father Morris Ankrum have staked a claim on a piece of the valley. Her father is killed, but Stanwyck survives and his taken to the camp of Lance Fuller, Caruso's rival in the Blackfeet nation.

So we have some unusual white/Indian alliances forming here and lurking through it all is a mysterious stranger played by Ronald Reagan who is not quite what he seems to be at all.

It's a good, but routine western, helped considerably by good location photography and crisp direction by Allan Dwan. Stanwyck looks very much like she's in preparation for her role as Victoria Barkley in The Big Valley. And Ronald Reagan who while he doesn't do mysterious real well, does look right at home on the range.

Barbara Stanwyck and Ronald Reagan star together in this tale of the growing state of Montana, becoming a landowner, fighting for land, and making one's dreams into reality. It all sounds rather profound, important, or dramatic, doesn't it? Well, I probably make it sound more so than it really is. This is basically Indians vs. White Man, The Law vs. White Man Selling Ammunition to Indians, Indian Brother vs. Indian Brother, and Stanwyck vs. Reagan. The later sounds more interesting, doesn't it? Well, the viewer is led to believe that Reagan is hired as a gunslinger to get rid of Barbara when she won't leave "her" land, after White Man got Indians to raid her family settlement, which killed her father. They don't know Stanwyck. That only made her more determined to stay, and mad. Watch out! The presence of Stanwyck and Reagan elevates this otherwise generic film, which emphasizes the Indians too much in the first half. It does get better in its last 30 to 40 minutes with Stanwyck declaring war. But, there's too much of everyone's against everyone else and trying to keep up with who's on whose side and who's betraying whom, and the actors portraying the Indians slow down the film with their, to be frank, pretty lame acting. By the end of the film, you'll probably like it on the whole, due to the chemistry and flirting between Barbara and Ronnie and their being on the screen more together near the end of the film. But, you'll also wish they were in other better films than this.

"Cattle Queen of Montana" was one of those "tough old broad" westerns that Barbara Stanwyck made during the 1950s.

In this one Sierra Nevada Jones (Stanwyck), her father Pop Jones (Morris Ankrum) and their foreman Nat Collins (Chubby Johnson) have driven a herd of some 1,100 cattle up from Texas to settle in Montana. On their arrival, the herd is stampeded, Pop is killed and old Nat seriously wounded. The raid is led by renegade Blackfoot Natchakoa (Anthony Carouso) who is in league with local rancher McCloud (Gene Evans) to drive off any new ranchers arriving in the area.

Into the picture comes gunfighter Farrell (Ronald Reagan) who signs on with McCloud. In the meantime "good" Blackfoot, Colorados (Lance Fuller) rescues Sierra and Nat and takes them to his village to recover. Gradually Sierra and Colorados become allies much to the chagrin of Colorado's girlfriend Starfire (Yvette Duguay) and Natchakoa.

It turns out that Farrell is an army officer working under cover to discover who has been selling guns to the renegade Blackfeet. Well you knew that the clean cut Reagan would turn out to be a good guy didn't you? Anyway, Farrell aligns himself with Sierra and Colorados against the baddies and well, you know the rest.

Director Alan Dwan gives us a beautifully photographed outdoor western. The VCI DVD has been digitally remastered to its original technicolor brilliance and this alone makes this a must see.

Reagan is not very convincing as a ruthless gunfighter. He just doesn't come across as being mean enough. Stanwyck would play a number of similar roles in other westerns culminating with her long run on TV's "The Big Valley". She's supposed to be a "cattle queen" here but doesn't have any cattle to speak of through most of the picture. Lance Fuller looks about as much like an Blackfoot Indian as I do.

Also in the cast are Jack Elam and Myron Healey (who has a good scene with Stanwyck) as McCloud's henchmen, Hugh Sanders as Col. Carrington and a toothless Glenn Strange as the old Blackfoot Chief.

Oddly enough most of the featured players (and Reagan) in this film would turn up in "Tennessee's Partner" the following year.

Barbara Stanwyck stars as hard-riding redhead who is out to reclaim land and cattle stolen from her by an unscrupulous rancher in cahoots with hostile Indians. Many of the standard western movie clichés make up the story so there isn't anything new here. Ronald Reagan appears as an undercover government agent investigating unlawful distribution of rifles to the Indians and has trouble keeping Stanwyck out of harm's way. Lance Fuller is a college-educated Indian who wants his people to walk in the ways of the white man. Anthony Caruso, who was great at portraying villains, is on target as a bad Indian who's in cahoots with Gene Evans who conspires to drive Jones off her rightful claim to the valley. The picture also has a wealth of great character actors such as Myron Healy, Jack Elam, Morris Ankrum, Chubby Johnson and Rod Redwing. The film has fine technicolor lensing and an okay music score.

A story about this movie goes like this:

THe production hired some Indians for a few measly dollars a day.But in the meantime,oil was found on their territory and they became millionaires But they had to honor their contract:so they came to the set in limos.

Some viewers have complained about a certain racism.I do not think it is so;there are villains among the Indian tribe and among the Whites.For Stanwyck,the film looks like a blueprint for her "Forty guns" (Fuller,1957),although it's less violent and less inventive.But Dwan makes us feel his love for nature