Le frontiere dei Sioux

This movie was the WORST western I have ever seen. The acting was forced, phony, and contrived. The script must have been written and completed in 1 day. The 'special effects' were outright comedy. The 'Indians' ran right out in front of bullets. I saw one 'Indian' fall down..BEFORE he was shot! The 'Indians' were speaking perfect English. I saw the same scene at least 5 times. It was so bad, I HAD to watch it to see if it was going to get any worse. NO MOVIE was going to get any worse than this one! Honestly, the actors looked embarrassed to be in this 'movie'. Lee Van Cleef was totally out of place. Phil Carey looked stiffer than the wood on the roof. The 'Indians' were stereotypical. Do NOT waste any money buying this 'movie'!!

Considering the cast and crew, this could have been a much better Oater, but what we see is a cliche-ridden, hackneyed plot with all of the 50s stereotypes. What action there is, turns out either to be objects hurled at the camera for 3D effect or stock footage from earlier films. This one is an easy pass.

Whilst the Civil war is over there is trouble brewing in the state of Nebraska as Chief Thundercloud has been murdered and the last man seen leaving his tent was Indian scout Wingfoot (Maurice Jara) who Wade Harper (Philip Carey) escorts back to Fort Carney as he believes he is innocent despite Spotted Bear (Jay Silverheels) and his Sioux warriors chasing them across open country. But Wingfoot escapes the fort when under arrest Private Reno Benton (Lee Van Cleef) murders the guard and forces Wingfoot to leave with him. With Harper and a small troop following their trail things don't go to plan as whilst Harper catches up with Reno and Wingfoot he also catches up to his ex, Mrs. Paris Elliott (Roberta Haynes) who has recently married Ace (Richard Webb) and this small group end up pinned down at Mac McBride's (Wallace Ford) outpost by Spotted Bear and his warriors.

Yes, there's some dodgy looking papier-mâché mache rocks moving during a skirmish, stock footages, a bullet sound occurring seconds after a guy falls off his horse, and a very routine story with familiar situations, but this is lower down the production line, after all, and these things are expected. Yet I fairly enjoyed this. The 3-D wasn't bad.

The Nebraskan" is just a standard cowboys and Indians western from the 50s where a mixed group of people end up under siege from warring Native Americans. It's actually far from dull, and fills in those 68 minutes quite well. Plus it's got some good action, a slimy villain in Lee Van Cleef, a stoic yet solid turn from Phil Carey as the hero, and a shady performance by Jay Silverheels. It lacks some tension, though, but it still fun for such a short time. For all it's familiar tropes of the genre, the cavalry don't come riding to save the day.

An army scout captures Wingfoot--an Indian who works for the cavalry--who is wanted for murder. He brings him into the fort but the Indian, along with Lee Van Cleef, manages to escape. So Carey has to go after them. A no-good man and a woman, which he claims to be his wife, are rescued by Cleef and Wingfoot after their stagecoach is over-turned in an Indian chase. That's when Carey manages to catch Wingfoot/Cleef and takes them to a relay station where an old timer agrees to help take them back to the fort. Suddenly, before they can leave, they find they are surrounded by the Indians who want Wingfoot because the murder he is wanted for was their chief. Now Carey, the man and woman (who turns out to be Carey's former girlfriend), the relay manager and the two outlaws are trapped. There's lots of shooting and even a few times of catching the relay station on fire before the finale.

The acting in the movie is labored. It seems none of the actors/actresses were comfortable in their role nor had they learned their lines. It was really pitiful. But that was not the worst.

One of the most ridiculous things about the movie, other than the contrived, forced acting by all, is the use of fake rocks which are held up in front of the camera during the chase scenes and continue to move back and forth as though whoever was holding the picture could not hold it still. The "rocks" were there to highlight the front portion of the scenery and make it look "rocky" to match the mountains in the far background. But they certainly LOOKED super-imposed! It REALLY cheapens the movie. Were it not for the fact I taped it off cable I would not spend money to buy it on video/DVD.

I don't suppose it could have been THAT bad as I've just watched it a second time to fill in an empty hour or two. I wish now that I'd made a body count of the Native Americans who got killed in attacking McBride's house, sometimes falling off their horses out of sync with the defenders' rifle shots: possibly twenty - a very high casualty rate. At least some of them were only wounded, in contrast to the apparent 100% mortality in similar situations in other films, and they were shown being helped away by their comrades.

I wondered about a right-handed Wade Harper firing his rifle and pistol from the right-hand side of the window, with his body protected only by a shutter. I would have thought that instinctively he would have preferred to have placed himself on the other side, behind the more solid wall.

The curious moving boulders have been mentioned by others. The Native Americans' English could have come from a child's comic book.

And who didn't think there would be an attractive young woman on the stagecoach ...