Frontiera indiana

This western about a wagon train on its way across the US to California in the 1840s and its travails with attacking Indians and Mexican forces managed to attract a few familiar western faces, such as Jim Davis, Nestor Paiva, Stuart Randall and Addison Richards. Otherwise, it's a boring, mostly studio-bound effort saddled with a script of the consistency of molasses, leaden direction by veteran (which does not, in this case, mean competent) director Edward L. Cahn, very poor performances by a supporting cast of unknowns that explains why they remained unknowns, a preponderance of stock footage, some confused "action" scenes and muddy photography. Davis, as the scout leading the wagon train, tries hard, but his romance with Spanish "senorita" Nancy Hadley goes nowhere, mainly because of the idiotic drivel they're forced to recite and Hadley's shortcomings as an actress (she only made one more film after this, though she did do some TV work). Paiva, Randall and Richards try to inject some life--and professionalism--into the goings-on, but there's only so much they could do, and it wasn't enough. The film's cheapness shows through in every frame, and that's hardly the only area in which it's deficient. A very poor effort not worth wasting your time on.