not a very good movie

I just watched "Fort Bowie" on the Encore Western channel, and I can understand why Ben Johnson's career didn't take off into the stratosphere. The movie just plain sucked.

Oh, Johnson's acting was fine. But the plot was contrived, the battle scenes were extraordinarily bad, the romantic subplot was passionless... it was just bad in every way.

In one scene, when the Apaches got inside the walls of the fort and there were only a few remaining soldiers trapped in the mess hall (along with the women), one of them was shot in the chest by an arrow. But the soldier standing next to him was already staring at his fellow soldier before the arrow hit, instead of looking out the window and firing his weapon.

Then, when another troop of cavalry entered the fort, ready to take on the Apaches, they were riding two-by-two and many of them were firing their revolvers in the air! You'd think they would save those bullets for the enemy they were going to engage in the next second!

If Ben Johnson was supposed to be the leading man, you'd think he would have been onscreen more of the time. And when he was onscreen, you'd think the camera angles would have been better.

One more thing worth mentioning -- at no time during the film was any soldier shown demonstrating even the slightest knowledge of combat. One troop of cavalry rode directly into an ambush. In the battle at the fort, few of the soldiers made use of any cover, they just stood in the open firing wildly and getting cut down by the Apaches. Colonel, major, captain, sergeant, private -- none of them demonstrated any military leadership or even a basic knowledge of warfare.