I dominatori di Fort Ralston

My how the mighty have fallen. Roles must have gotten mighty hard to come by for an actress of Miss Colbert's caliber. This movie is very typical of 1950's oaters. The one unusal aspect is that Prudence (Miss Colbert) is initially a strong, independent woman, kind of unusual for a western. But in the end Gene Barry Sullivan Fitzgerald becomes her "protector". This is a very cornball movie and Gregory Walcott who plays Jess Foley has got to be one of the most wooden actors ever to grace the silver screen. One can almost see the pain on Miss Colbert's face as she delivers some of the corniest lines in movie history. It is such a can of corn it is worth watching for the unintentional humor it delivers.

>>Claudette Colbert looking far too old and matronly for the part of an ambitious small-town journalist and card sharp Colbert certainly doesn't look matronly in this film - she's just as slender and attractive as ever.

I've just attended the WIllimasburg Film Festival, which showed this film. It has great meaning for Gregory Walcott- it was his "breakthrough" role, and his wife was pregnant with his first child, which she gave birth to a week after the movie finished filming.

In Walcott's biography, Hollywood Adventures, he tells the story of how he first met Colbert, who was concerned that he was so much younger than she was. But if older leading men can be put in with actresses 20 years younger than them, than women should be able to get the same treatment.

It is a bit episodic, but fun nevertheless.

This was Claudette Colbert's second to last theatrical feature and if this was the quality of scripts she was being offered at that time it's no wonder she stayed away six years between this and Parrish. First of all she belongs in some urbane urban setting not the Old West and try though she might she is out of place there. Additionally she and Barry Sullivan, always a dull leading man no matter his costar, go together like oil and water sharing zero romantic chemistry. The script is ordinary and the direction not terribly exciting plus the film is soft and fuzzy with over-bright color. If you like Claudette or westerns it's okay but don't expect anything above the routine.

A rare opportunity to savour Ms Colbert in colour, that beautiful profile as usual shot throughout from the left; she still had what it took in her fifties to play an alpha female with a leading man nearly ten years her junior.

A good film depends upon good dialogue as much as visual action, and the dialogue in this Western is certainly above average. Horace McCoy wrote the excellent novel, ' They Shoot Horses, Don't They ? ' and his expertise as a writer shows. The actual plot is functional, and conforms to the usual trope of good people winning over the bad, and the plot has been gone over several times in other reviews. Claudette Colbert is an acquired taste as an actor, and despite reservations I usually respond to her. Her delivery of lines is excellent, and she holds the film together with her strong presence. She is totally incapable of showing much depth of feeling, but her surface approach to others around her works in certain roles, especially comedy, and she knows a witty line when she sees one. Barry Sullivan was a weak foil for her, but then again it works. And there is one scene in the film which is exceptional; an elderly woman shooting down a gunman where others fail to do so. It is a total surprise and this again is thanks to the well written script. As for Colbert running a small press in a small town this is just believable, and that she depends on any man to help her is equally unlikely, but yet again she makes it work. I have seen this film quite a few times in my life and I always enjoy it. It is not a great film, but it is far better than most other reviewers suggest. All the required ingredients are there, and it is not just mindless entertainment. It shows quite clearly that people should be free of oppressors, and it has a political edge which veers more towards equality than domination.