Les Clairons sonnent la charge

BUGLES IN THE AFTERNOON (1952) uses the stirring saga of Custer's Last Stand as a backdrop for a rather trite story of a love triangle involving two cavalry officers in love with the same woman. Ray Milland plays Kern Shafter, an army Colonel who was stripped of his rank and dishonorably discharged for stabbing another officer, Captain Edward Garnett (Hugh Marlowe), with a saber during the Civil War. Ten years later, Shafter finds himself on a cavalry outpost in the Dakota Territory, under the command of the very same officer. Soon, they come to blows over a new woman, Josephine Russell, played by Helena Carter. Garnett assigns Shafter to increasingly dangerous missions, culminating in the scouting of Indian positions just before the action at Little Big Horn.

There is lots of action, great location photography and numerous enjoyable western scenes of men on horseback fighting Indians and rescuing townsmen and such. Unfortunately the film is badly miscast. Ray Milland is too laidback for a role that required someone a bit younger, tougher and more embittered, like John Payne (who excelled in this kind of role in films like CAPTAIN CHINA, CROSSWINDS and PASSAGE WEST) or a bit more ramrod straight like Randolph Scott, who was making plenty of westerns for the same studio (Warner Bros.) at the time. While she's absolutely gorgeous, Helena Carter has such polished diction and precise finishing school manners that she never appears believable as a settler in this hardscrabble western territory. She never shows emotion and scolds her two would-be lovers with carefully measured words rather than letting loose a little honest fury at them for their ridiculous behavior. Hugh Marlowe excelled at playing smarmy, officious types, but he wasn't much of a tough guy and never poses a sufficiently convincing threat to the hero. Worse, there are three great actors in the supporting cast who excelled at playing heavies-Forrest Tucker, Barton MacLane, and James Millican-yet they all play nice guys here. What a waste! Tucker, in particular, seems to be auditioning for a part in a John Ford western by imitating both Ward Bond and Victor McLaglen.

Luckily, the Sioux and Cheyenne are on hand to menace the cavalry. In one of the best scenes, early in the film, Milland rides alone into a band of armed, hostile Sioux to identify and apprehend two braves wanted for murdering a trio of prospectors. Marlowe hopes the Sioux will kill him, but Milland gets his suspects and rides out unharmed. The Sioux are led by Chief Red Owl, played by Indian actor John War Eagle. The other Sioux are all played by real Indians as well. Later in the film, Sheb Wooley is seen briefly as Custer. George (Superman) Reeves has a small part as one of the cavalry officers. The film was produced by William Cagney (James's brother), directed by Roy Rowland, and written by veteran screenwriters Geoffrey Homes and Harry Brown from a novel by famed western author Ernest Haycox.

This is one of my favourite 'B' Westerns. It is highly enjoyable and very underrated (for example, in Halliwell's Film Guide, it gets no stars at all!).

The cinematography and location filming are very impressive and evocative. The action scenes are exciting and well staged. The scene compositions are particularly well done. For example, in the confrontations and battles between cavalry and Indians, we often see both sides at once, in one shot, making it a lot more realistic and engrossing than cross-cutting between one side and the other.

Sometimes there are moments that are gripping and even spine-tingling, such as the remorseless advance of the Indians up the cliff towards Forrest Tucker as he makes his heroic last stand.

Some of the other reviewers complained about character actor heavies such as Tucker, Barton MacLane and James Millican playing good guys, but actually it is a pleasant change seeing them in sympathetic roles.

There are many effective moments, even in brief shots, such as the ironic one when General Custer, on his way to the Little Big Horn, gives a sweeping, nonchalant bow to the woman who asks him to bring all the men home alive.

I've seen this film about five times over the last few decades, and it is still just as good!

The book "Bugles in the Afternoon" is regarded as one of the better novels relating to Custer's Last Stand, and this film is a reasonable adaptation, not that it devotes much time to the battle itself. Rather it concentrates on a love triangle, with some good cavalry action with the Indians that is almost incidental to the Custer massacre.

I blinked a little at Kern Shafter's appearance on arriving to enlist at Fort Abraham Lincoln; he looked extremely smart, even for the gambler he had become. I assume his motivation in rejoining the colours was nostalgia for army life,though this wasn't completely evident.

The well-known participants in the battle - Custer, Reno, Benteen - don't get much screen time, and the General himself has only a few lines. At least he looks the part, with the short hair he favoured for a hot campaign rather than his trademark long locks. Purists may raise their eyebrows at the cavalry using repeating rifles, when in fact they carried single-shot carbines, and pack-animals rather than the wagons shown supplied the troops in the general battlefield area.

But all in all, it's a reasonable cavalry Western, but not in the same league as those of John Wayne and John Ford.

Hugh Marlowe must have felt just like Richard Blaine in Casablanca when Sergeant Ray Milland was assigned to the same post. Back in the Civil War they fought it out over a woman with Marlowe getting slashed with a saber and Milland getting busted out of the army.

But Milland's come back as an enlisted man in the 7th cavalry where Captain Marlowe is now assigned and there's Helena Carter to get the boys hormones a going'.

Fortunately this triangle story with the replacement apex is against the background of the fight at Little Big Horn. Lots of nice slam bang action make up for some of the sillier aspects of the romance.

Good Saturday afternoon western for those like me who like them.

"Bugles in the Afternoon" was filmed in the desert around Kanab, Utah, and because of that arid landscape, many viewers may assume that Fort C.F. Smith and the Custer Battlefield were located somewhere in the American Southwest. Please keep in mind that the actual battlefield is located Southeast of Billings, Montana near what is now the border with Wyoming. The area along the Little Big Horn River, and eastward to the rise of Rose Bud Creek is characterized by rolling hills, which on that fateful morning of June 25, 1876 were probably still covered by green prairie grass, not rocks and sand. Though somewhat muddled geographically, this is still a most entertaining movie !