La charge des tuniques bleues

this is another good western,which i enjoyed.it's not an epic or anything,but it is good for what it is.it' about 3 fur trappers,led by a men named Jed,who is crude and uncivilized.Jed and his two friends find themselves as scouts for a fort that is the only thing standing between them and and Indian band,who resent the Americans on their land,and want to take it back.that's the gist of the story.what follows is action,excitement,even a bit of humour,and forbidden romance.one of Jed's friends,Gus,reminded me a lot of the character Quint(played by Robert Shaw)in the movie Jaws.they both have that crusty,gruff demeanor.anyway,if you're a western fan,you should find lots to like about this particular entry.i think it deserves a 7/10

The casting of Mature as the "savage" and Robert Preston (NOT Preston Foster!!) as the crazed cavalry officer made this one very appealing. The story, pushing the envelope for it's time, has our hero attempting to steal a married woman. James Whitmore has a nice supporting role, and take it from me-the BEST westerns came out of the 50s!

More of an army drama set in the West vs. a Western this has solid direction and some good actors. Victor Mature is hammy but Guy Madison gives a stronger performance here than was usual for him, relaxed and assured. Robert Preston is the cruel commander who is revealed early on as a soulless martinet. He is married to a soft and startlingly blond Anne Bancroft who is good but whose role is incidental. The film makes some veiled and some pointed references to early pioneers disregard for the ways not only of the Indians but of trappers and others who had easily coexisted with them destroying their way of life as valueless merely because it was not the settlers way.

While this picture may be minor Anthony Mann, it's a very off-beat, well acted, western. Mature is the anti-thesis of Mann's uber-hero, the driven, edgy loner played to perfection by Jimmy Stewart. Mann plays to Mature's strengths by casting him as the uncivilized, passion driven scout given to bouts of raucous drunkenness. Robert Preston is very good as the obsessed, kill-crazy Colonel whose wife (Anne Bancroft) Mature covets He also slugs her! Wow! Savage Mature!

Ordinarily, Anthony Mann made westerns with 'the big guys' - James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda . . . the A list cowboy stars. But in this B+ film, he tackled something notably different and had quite a bit of success with what turned out to be a truly one of a kind western. The main character, played by Victor Mature, is a trapper/ mountain man, and ordinarily they are romanticized in films - Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson, that sort of thing, where the hero is not in fact a typical mountain man but a clean cut heroic figure who hangs out with real mountain men. Not here. For once, a true mountain man - vulgar, crude, animalistic - is the central figure, and it's something to see, giving Mature one of his better later roles. The real acting chops are provided by Robert Preston, excellent as a self-absorbed Custer type cavalry commander, and James Whitmore, the poor man's Spencer Tracy, as another of those old timers who feel themselves trapped between ever more hostile Indians on the one side and the oncoming force of civilization on the other. Even more impressive is a very young Anne Bancroft as the officer's wife, who is initially repulsed by the very sight of Mature's grisly character, then finds her own veneer of civilization slipping away as she begins to realize, to her own shock, that she's attracted to him. Rarely if ever has a remote frontier fort been so accurately realized on screen, without the romantic allure that John Ford gave such a place in his masterful Fort Apache. The battle sequences are big scale and notably violent, and particularly impressive if you seen them in widescreen format. Good show, and underrated movie, all around.