The Gun That Won the West

William Castle who directed some interesting if gimmicky fright films is at the helm of The Gun That Won The West. This account of Red Cloud's war with the USA in the post Civil War years is one cheap production with some very bored actors giving some very pedestrian performances.

The same criticism I had of the film Tomahawk where Van Heflin played Jim Bridger applies here as well. Dennis Morgan plays the famous frontier scout and mountain man whose best days in the 1860s were far behind him. Bridger was in his sixties suffering from a variety of health issues of which arthritis was the most prominent. Hardly a western hero at that point of his life. Nor was he ever involved with Wild West Shows which started a decade or so after the years this film was set in.

Morgan and married friends Richard Denning and Paula Raymond are busy with a wild west show where the drunken and dissolute Denning is unable to perform in any number of ways. Still they get a mission and drop the wild west show and go to Dakota Territory to help the army conduct a string of forts. That does not sit well with Red Cloud and the Sioux and war breaks out.

Denning's character is poorly written. For the first half of the film he's a drunken bum. Then for no apparent reason he becomes the real hero of the piece. As for Paula Raymond she follows Tammy Wynette's advice and stands by her man even though Morgan is more appealing.

The title refers to the army's new Springfield Rifles. But The Gun That Won The West has lost its audience long before the film ends.

Despite the summary above, this events that this movie depicts happened during Red Cloud's War happened in 1866- 1868 not the late 1880s. Also, the Secretary of War depicted in the movie, Edwin Stanton left office in 1868. The introduction of the Springfield rifle helped the Army win some battles. Peace came after a change of policy that lead to the Army's abandonment of the Powder River Country and its forts along the Bozemann trail. Settlers were channeled to the Transcontinental Railroad then nearing completion. It's route ran farther south.

Red Cloud was the only major Indian leader who really won a war against the US Army. The peace treaty did not last long thanks to white treachery, greed for gold, Custer's thirst for glory, etc.

Any resemblance in this film between historical accuracy and what you see in the picture isn't coincidental, it's downright unintentional. The fact that Sam Katzman produced it should have been a warning that this film would be made as cheaply as possible, with lots of stock footage borrowed from "Buffalo Bill" ("Pony Soldier" borrowed the same battle scenes) and Indian "war" dances. The fact is that Red Cloud (who lived into the 20th century) made numerous visits to the White House to plead the cause of his people. The Bozeman Trail, supposedly the reason for the U.S. Army to escort railroad builders, simply isn't true; no railroad was built into the area at that time. Red Cloud succeeded in getting the Bozeman trail forts abandoned, a detail not mentioned in the film. Lots of anachronisms, including a Wild West show taking place in the 1860s, Jim Bridger actually in his dotage by then, and demeaning references to Native people ("Redskins") unacceptable today. The fight between Bridger and the Indian in the river comes straight out of "Buffalo Bill" in which Joel McRae as Buffalo Bill fights Yellow Hand played by Anthony Quinn to the death. I wasted 1:15 watching this film; should have taken the time to read a book.

Entertaining enough although the weak script, low budget and poor film editing let the film down somewhat, probably a B movie supporting a better feature film when released. The dialogue and most of the action will frighten and shock millennials and wokes not brought up in the glorious 50s and 60s when we all played cowboys and injuns! Good that these western and war films still get plenty of tv airtime and no doubt sizeable audiences still.

Dennis Morgan stars as Jim Bridger who is hired to scout land for the cavalry. They want to build a land encroaching on Red Cloud's territory. Predictably Red Cloud is not happy with that, and consequently there's an injun vs cavalry feud, despite the New Springfield rifles on their way. It is a watchable western, but it doesn't standout. It's slow moving at time and though the action is energetic, the battle at the end features none of cavalry firing the new rifles, and it ends as if they ran out of film time.