Siege at Red River

This well unfolded tale is set at the end of the American Civil War, 1861 - 1865, it concerns the battle for one of the first Gatlin Machine Gun. As a confederate officer called Farraday, Van Johnson, posing as a Medicine Man along with his colleague, Milburn Stone , go throughout towns singing and delivering their supplies. They ride on a carriage captioning : Doc Sunderland, Muscle Builder, great scientific discovery. Meanwhile, the bad boy, Richard Boone, takes the Gatlin gun so that he can sell it to the violent Indians. Along the way captain Farraday falls in love for a beautiful nurse, Joanne Dru who formerly played a classic Western : Red River by Howard Hawks . The last and most desperate battle in the winning of the West!. And the two best soldiers in the line that day were the Giorgia captain and the Yankee spitfire!.

Decent Western in B-style with plenty of intrigue for good measure, noisy action, thrills , Indian attacks and cavalry charges . A plain, simple and nice plot deals with an undercover captain named Farraday who tries to prevent a Gatlin machine gun passes into the hands of hostile Indians . Varied cast provide adequate interpretation. But the rousing musical score by Lionel Newman, Cryl Mockridge, as well as appropriate production design by Lyle Wheeler, George Patrick and colorful cinematography in brilliant Technicolor by Edward Cronjager are the real stars of the film . Main starring, Van Johnson and Joanne Dru, who replaced Jean Peters, are pretty well. And support cast is frankly good, such as : Jeff Morrow, Milburn Stone, Craig Hill, among others. Special mention for Richard Boone who steals the show, giving a terrific acting as a strong villian.

This is an attractive western with action all the way produced by short-lived Panoramic Productions, being professionally directed by Rudolph Maté, though it has failures and some stock-shots. Maté, 1898-1964, was a good craftsman initially working in Europe, he even photographed the classic Passion of Joan of Arc by Karl Theodor Dreyer , as Nazi government rising, he then emigrated America where worked as a prestigious cameraman, and subsequently directed various films of all kinds of genres with penchant for thrillers, dramas, Adventure, Sci-Fi and westerns such as DOA, The dark past, Union Station, Branded, When worlds collide, The green glove, Second chance, The black shield of Falworth, The violent men, Three violent people, Deep six and For the first time. Rating : 6.5/10. Well worth watching.

A Confederate captain (Johnson) goes undercover in the North to steal a Gatling gun with his sergeant (Milburn Stone), but a Pinkerton operative is suspicious (Jeff Morrow). As they take advantage of an unknowing Rebel-hating woman (Joanne Dru), they hook up with a mercenary (Boone) to help them get through Indian country.

The era of 1953-1954 featured great Westerns like "Shane," "Destry," "Garden of Evil," "Johnny Guitar" and "Vera Cruz," as well as formidable ones like "Arrowhead," "Escape from Fort Bravo," "Gun Fury," "Hondo," "Pony Express," "Broken Lance" and "The Raid." I bring that up because "Siege at Red River" (1954) doesn't exactly place with these Westerns as it's flawed by amusing, yet generally unfitting humor and a too-busy giddy-up score, which is seriously quaint.

This isn't helped by splicing in Indian-fighting footage at the climax from "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" from five years earlier. Another problem is the disingenuous geography in the first half that's supposed to be areas near the Ohio River, but is obviously the Southwest (of course, this was more of a 'B' Western and it would simply cost too much to transplant the cast & crew to somewhere in the East for those particular scenes).

Nevertheless, there's a lot to enjoy in this old Western. Van Johnson's non-cowboy mannerisms actual fit the role since Capt. James S. Simmons/Jim Farraday hails from Atlanta back East. Johnson had charisma to spare and Milburn Stone is entertaining as the sidekick. Meanwhile Boone was unsurpassable as the unlikable character with "toxic masculinity." Add to this winsome Dru, the beautiful scenery and the interesting Gatling gun subplot and you have an entertaining enough early 50's Western with some lame elements.

It runs 1 hour, 25 minutes, with outside shooting done in east-central Utah at Professor Valley, Colorado River, Castle Valley and Dead Horse Point; as well as in Durango, Colorado, which is 158 miles southeast of there.

GRADE: B-/C+

In the last days of the American Civil War, a Confederate gun smuggler ends up helping to defend a Union fort when his weapons are sold to the Shawnee Indians.

Routine yet amiable western with light-hearted moments as well as tense ones. Van Johnson stars as a salesman going town with his assistance singing "tapioca." Clever bit is that it's a code word. It moves leisurely, and gets more exciting as it progresses and ends with a rousing cavalry vs Indians fight featuring a Gatling gun. Joanna Dru and Richard Boone as a villain also star. Van Johnson does well in his only western. Well photographed with fantastic rugged terrain.

An unpretentious Western totally unlike ' The Unforgiven ' which I reviewed just before this film. This is the kind of Western that is there as simple entertainment for those who like the genre. It gives a picture of the West as it really never was and the audiences of the time ( early to middle 1950's ) loved its nonsense because it kept to its formula. This formula consisted of colourful scenery, villains and heroes, women with improbably good clothes and makeup, a few battle scenes, horses and Indians and a lot of delightful hokum. The epitome of this is Saloon Bar music with the same ' tune ' played in film after film; 2Oth Century Fox was the past master of this ridiculous fiction. The whole concept of this image of the West was there to lull its audience into lies about how conquered America was constructed to put its indigenous people into Reservations. I accept the lie of this image of how the West was won as simple and superficial enjoyment; a guilty pleasure that entertains. This is totally unlike the Western with a message and often a fake finger wagging liberalism. This liberalism was to ease a conscience; a collective conscience of guilt and I dislike it. As they say in Film Noir ' it was too late for tears '. This simple film is all about the Gatling Gun and how it must not end up in Native American hands. It has a ridiculous song which is endearing and has Van Johnson, Joanne Dru and Richard Boone. An ' A ' cast in a basically' B ' film, and they all act to form and just as the audience expected them to do. There is a stirring climax and the Gatling Gun ( a horrible form of human extermination ) and it is made to look like a naughty toy. The mindless child I still am thoroughly enjoyed it.

This western is about two unreconstructed southerners who steal a Gatling gun from Union soldiers which winds up in the hands of an outlaw who sells the gun to Indians for gold. The film dwells on character development and takes a great deal of time detailing the two southern agents' travels from town to town delivering coded messages and trying to arrange a rendezvous with a contact to deliver the Gatling. The picture is another Blue vs. Gray conflict in the west with the Indians on the warpath against the soldiers, a plot angle that has been done better in other westerns. Van Johnson is okay as the hero and Joanne Dru is the gal who falls for Johnson. Richard Boone is a standout as a gun-running renegade in a role as a heavy he would reprise in other westerns. The supporting cast and color photography are good.