A great movie, the actors and acting were exceptional. The movie has good historical matter, and portrays the Indian tactics of the Mescalero tribe to a T. The lenient treatment of Confederate prisoners in Fort Bravo would have to be the only time in the history of The Civil War it ever happened. Other than this exception it was historically correct.
shareI've never seen it; hope it gets a DVD issue soon. The stills I've seen of Eleanor Parker in it are gorgeous. Does the role give her the chance to act, or is it a Technicolor excuse to show the audience how beautiful she was?
shareIf you are a Parker fan you might think her beautiful no matter what, but I actually thought I'd seen her look much better. Her hair in particular was a very interesting shade.
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I love your blog saucybetty!!!
French and Saunders rule the planet.
I wish I lived in the UK.
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kim
The Truth is out there.
Yes Parker is gorgeous and it was an Anscocolor excuse. Acting was pretty secondary. She never lost her make-up either during long battles with the Indians and the dusty desert. Imagine that!
I saw little change in her acting in this and 12 years later in The Sound of Music- spooky. She delivered her lines and her bearing was exactly like the more matronly character in TSOM. Really out of place in Fort Bravo but fit well in TSOM.
Yeah lol the whole make up thing in the desert was typical for the time with few exceptions. The technicolor starlets had to look their best no matter what!
I can see why you'd see similarities between her performances in this movie and TSOM. Remember tho that in this film, Carla is a victorian era Southern Belle whom at that time would have had an aristocratic bearing in keeping with the times and she also exaggerates this a great deal at the start to camouflage her real intent to help the Rebs escape. Later when she's found out she drops that guise just a bit, altho she still is by nature a southern belle who fell on hard times.
In TSOM, Ms. Parker is An actual aristocrat and similar to Carla in that underneath lies a woman of the world.
But if you ever saw Eleanor Parker in films like "The Man With The Golden Arm", "Detective Story", "Caged", etc., you'd see she had a much broader range, despite the studio trying to pigeon hole her as they did with most of their leading women.
IMHO, Parker in a way was a bit like a bridge between the old style of film good film acting which while still holding to a truthful approach was more theatrical and the more realistic approach that occurred later on. Also, she and actresses like Bette Davis and Susan Hayward among others paved the way for the likes of Joanne Woodward, Jane Fonda, etc who were able to play more complicated characters which is what the three older woman among others tried to do to and often succeeded at against the preconceived views of the studio bosses.
I was flipping channels and came across this movie on TCM, and recognized some of the locations. I watched the movie to see the spectacular scenery. The set of the fort is on the site of the present day Red Rocks State Park, in New Mexico off of Interstate 40, about 30 miles east of the Arizona state line. The place where Capt. Roper and Miss Carla went riding is a well known hiking area. Anyone who drives that stretch of the interstate will recognize those red and white cliffs.
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I love the song at the beginning, Yellow Stripes by Stan Jones. It's real memorable.
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."
The spectacular scenery was definitely the best part of the movie for me. Other than that it was an okay western. I have a sneaking suspicion that much of the "historical accuracy" and depiction of the Mescalero Apache fighting techniques is overblown Hollywood stuff. No wonder the Apache "lost" if they used universally poor tactics like closely circling pinned-down defenders and shooting away at them and their own people across the circle! I think not! (-:
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