The Civil War ground was fertile ground for Westerns - the 1950s in particular seemed to have a bunch of them featuring Northerners and Southerners squabbling amongst themselves before taking on the Indians e.g. Rocky Mountain, Column South, Escape from Fort Bravo (few of them ever had any black people in them).
This was one, which has the same plot as the later Major Dundee: captured Confederate POW Joseph Cotten is asked by injured Cornel Wilde to help fight Injuns at a fort run by bitter Jeff Chander. That's a pretty good set up - thrown in the fact that Chandler's brother died at a battle in which Cotten took part, Linda Darnell as the woman at the fort, the widow of Chandler's brother.
Unfortunately after that things get more conventional and dull - Chandler is so bitter and twisted that he's no sexual threat to Cotten; Cornel Wilde is wasted - he starts off looking interesting with an eye patch, but that soon goes and he's just this "hey-the-South-aren't-all-bad" character; Darnell, who just showed how good she could be in Letter to Three Wives is also wasted in a nothing part. It's also got that irritating bias towards the South which always seemed to exist in these stories - Cotten is a gentleman, cultured and brave, the Union soldiers are nasty.
It's stylishly directed by Robert Wise, Cotten is perfectly cast and Chandler gets the chance to show something different in a rare character role, channelling Henry Fonda in Fort Apache (he's got a moustache and is made to look older). He's got a fantastic last scene, bravely walking off to his death, and there's some good siege action at the end when the Indians take on the soldiers. Not bad - you just wish it was better.
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