Canyon River

This 1956 Western is short and sweet (it's 80 mins). The plot is a little more complicated than many other minor westerns like this. Geo. Montgomery is a rancher who wants to cross-breed some cattle to make them heartier for the frigid Wyoming winters. He goes to Oregon with his ranch foreman (Peter Graves) to bring back some good breeding stock. But on the way to Ore. Graves gets shot up pretty bad by some horse-stealing Indians and is left behind at a lady's residence to recover (played by Marcia Henderson). What Montgomery doesn't know is before he left for Oregon good old P.G. had him set up for slaughter on the way back so he could steal the herd and along with an unscrupulous businessman and his slimy henchman (Walter Sande and Robert J. Wilke) set themselves up in the ranching business. But there are yet more complications to come on the road to ranching happiness . . . but you'll have to see the movie to find out the rest.

UPDATE: This movie was released on DVD by Warner Home Video on 3/23/09, but I've still got my long out-of-print videocassette of CANYON RIVER on the old Allied Artists Video Corporation label.

Canyon River, a western from Allied Artists and starring George Montgomery tries to pack a little too much plot in the 80 minute film. And one performer was completely miscast in the role of villain.

Peter Graves as Montgomery's foreman on his cattle ranch is fixing to betray Montgomery in his scheme to bring furrier Hertford cattle to Wyoming from Oregon. Texas longhorns haven't enough hair to survive Wyoming winters. But Graves who says he wants to be his own boss is planning a double cross with villains Walter Sande and Robert Wilkie.

Try as I might I could not wrap myself around Peter Graves as a rat. When he did play one in Stalag 17 the idea was during over half the film you don't know he's the barracks informer with his all-American demeanor. Here we know right away and I couldn't buy it.

Later on in the film Graves is shot and Montgomery brings him to the tender care of widow Marcia Henderson and her son Richard Eyer. Graves falls for her, but she's got eyes for George. Now that would have been good plot motivation from the beginning.

I also could not buy the fact that Montgomery went to a saloon in Oregon where the town low lifes imbibe, beat Alan Hale in a fight, and then win the whole crew of miscreants over with promise of employment. That was really too much.

Canyon River which boasted some nice scenic western cinematography on the plus side was not one of George Montgomery's better roles.

Canyon River (AKA: Cattle King) is directed by Harmon Jones and written by Daniel B. Ullman. It stars George Montgomery, Marcia Henderson, Peter Graves, Richard Eyer, Walter Sande, Robert J. Wilke and Alan Hale Jr. A CinemaScope/De Luxe Color production, music is by Marlin Skiles and cinematography by Ellsworth Fredricks.

Montgomery plays rancher Steve Patrick, who along with his mischievous foreman Bob Andrews (Graves), embarks on a lucrative cattle drive from East to West along the Oregon Trail. What Steve doesn't know is that there are plans afoot to relieve him of everything.

Standard Oater this one but never boring and as a production it looks very nice indeed. The problem mainly is that it gets caught between two aims, it clearly wants to portray the harshness of a cattle drive and build suspense by way of back stabbing ideals and group dynamic pressures, but it never utilises the plot possibilities.

The set-up is fine, Steve Patrick is a top man, a guy you want on your side, but the only cattle hands he can raise for the job are outlaws and ruffians. Led by George Lynch (Hale Jr.) they are one of the most none threatening bunch of crims to grace a 50s Western! There's some expected problems on the trail, but when the biggest gripe from the tough guys is that they have no meat to eat, you know that peril is in short supply.

With Janet Hale (Henderson) and her young son Chuck (Eyer) joining the trail as cook and aspiring cowboy respectively, there's the inevitable romantic strand slotted into proceedings, complete with absent father yearnings. Again this is pretty much wasted as a chance to put some bite into the tale, this in spite of the rumbling love triangle arc. Action is in short supply, with a little gun play, a fist-fight and some stampede control briefly raising the pulse, while the villains are only peripheral characters (a shame to see Wilke underused).

Yet for all its missed opportunities, the story is a good one. The basis of driving cattle the wrong way as opposed to the norm, and in Winter time as well, is interesting. As is the fact that Steve is cross-breeding the cattle to withstand the Winter months, with the commodity of beef being crucial to the cowboy's livelihood. There's clearly some thought gone into the screenplay, even if the makers forgot to add suspense to the tantalising threads that they dangle throughout. 6/10

George Montgomery is Steve Patrick, a cattle rancher with a plan to create a new, improved crossbreed that will be hardy enough to withstand the unforgiving Wyoming winters. But first he must drive his herd of cattle to his Wyoming ranch. The problem is that no respectable cattle hand is interested in travelling into the bad weather out of season, so he's forced to hire a band of ne'er-do-wells. What he doesn't realise is that his best friend Bob (Peter Graves) is planning to double-cross him by engineering an ambush at the eponymous Canyon River with the local bad guy when the drive is nearly over. Added into the mix is the comely widow (Marcia Henderson) with a young son whom both Steve and Bob fall for, thus stirring Bob's resentment of his friend even further.

Canyon River is one of those modest Western programmers that have no pretensions of artistic merit but which simply strive to tell a straightforward story in as efficient and economical a way possible. The story is fairly unusual for this kind of film. There's not that much gunplay, as the plot focuses more on the simmering tensions that exist between Steve, Bob and Janet and the band of rogues led by cuddly Alan Hale Jr. Chances are you've probably never come across such a lacklustre band of outlaws as this bunch; Montgomery's character only has to give Hale a few smacks across the chops to win his undying loyalty, and the rest of the crew only pay attention to the fetching young widow when she's dishing up chow on the trail. It's this lack of any prominent bad guys – Bob is essentially a good guy gone temporarily astray – that robs what is otherwise a decent little movie of the level of suspense it needs.

I've seen two or three movies about cross-breeding Hereford white-face cattle with Texas Long-horns to get a cow that can live in the high country; THE RARE BREED, starring Jimmy Stewart and Maureen O'Hara sticks in my mind because of the leads. CANYON RIVER is a more typical high-class B from Allied Artist, starring George Montgomery, who goes to buy the Herefords, his pal, Peter Graves, who rides along, ready to double-cross him for a stake in his own spread, and Marcia Henderson, who comes along on the cattle drive, because there has to be a love interest in this sort of movie.

It's a pretty good movie with some nice scenery thanks to cinematographer Ellsworth Fredericks and some good acting, particularly by Alan Hale, as leader of the disreputable cowhands whom Montgomery hires because no one else will. Montgomery, as always, is solid, one of those actors who never quite got out of the comfortable and profitable groove of B Western stardom before the genre went away. The result is a pleasant, if unmemorable example of the B western in its sunset phase.