The Indian Fighter

I've always enjoyed Kirk Douglas films in general and he's usually very good in westerns. But The Indian Fighter quite frankly is a pumped up B western.

Kirk produced this one as well and was able to get a good cast of familiar faces in westerns. He even got his ex-wife, Diana Douglas to appear as a widow traveling west on a wagon train with her son.

Kirk Douglas is Johnny Hawks who is a scout guiding a wagon train west to Oregon. The film opens with him checking out the naked Elsa Martinelli taking a bath in a creek. Pleasure before business and he continues on to the village where he finds out Elsa is the daughter of Chief Eduard Franz.

And that sets the tone for the film. When Douglas should be concerned about the safety of the people he's working for, he's off trying to court Elsa. His preoccupation with her almost causes disaster to the train.

Action there is though, including a nicely staged Indian attack on an army post. And the whole film was shot in Oregon on location quite nicely. I believe some of this same area was used in Kirk Douglas's later western The Way West.

Kirk Douglas's heroes are usually flawed and quite three dimensional. But this film has a hero I could not really get a rooting interest for.