In the 1960s, Hollywood tried to keep Westerns popular by casting teen idols in support of crusty old timers - Frankie Avalon, Ricky Nelson, Fabian, Elvis Presley, Troy Donahue. Here it was George Hamilton's turn - and actually he makes a decent fist of it. Hamilton isn't the first actor you think of when you hear the word "Western" but he's very well cast, as a toffee nosed West Pointer who is transferred to a fort out West and rubs crusty commander Richard Boone up the wrong way and steals the girl (Luana Patten) of one of his fellow officers.
Actually I found Hamilton's character easier to take than Boone's. Hamilton had a journey - from playboy to dedicated officer. Boone spent a lot of time whinging, was given too much dialogue, and had an attitude that ended up being creepy - you can't have a wife, you've got to dedicate himself to the cause, etc. When at the end he's persuaded Hamilton to ditch his girl and Hamilton invites him for a scotch alone together at night, Boone has this smile, and you can't help thinking "is there some other sort of recruiting going on here?"
It's not a bad story - about Apaches attacking - with some quite confronting moment: the opening scene involves Indians slaughtering and raping some women, leaving a little girl the only traumatised survivor; Indians later massacre a cavalry troop and are basically scary as hell; there's adultery and bickering at the fort. It was written by James Warner Bellah who wrote some John Ford movies - and I wish Ford had directed this. I think he would have loved it - you could imagine him working with a fellow boozer like Boone, or even giving that part to John Wayne, with Hamilton in the John Agar/Jeffrey Hunter role. He would have elevated the material, gotten juice out of the world of the fort and amped up the suspense. But they got Joseph Newman instead and he does a workmanlike job at best.
There is great novelty in the cast - Arthur O'Connell (who supported more teen idols than any other character actor of this period) is strong as a sergeant, Richard Chamberlain is decent as an officer, Charles Bronson is a womanising tough soldier, and Duane Eddy and Slim Pickens pop up.
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