Pony Soldier

Mediocre and unexceptional western dealing with a tale of the early days of Canadian Mounted Police and their relationships with the Indians . Average Western has Tyrone power as the Mountie on an assignment to the US to stop rebel Indians led by Stuart Randall as Standing Bear and Cameron Mitchell as Konah and their Cree tribes from launching an all out attack . As Tyrone , accompanied by Natayo: Thomas Gómez, has to keep rescuing hostages throughout the movie , as well as battling Cameron Mitchell and help harassed settlers fight Indians .There are White captives to be rescued : Robert Horten , Penny Edwards , too , and building a thrilling final confrontation .

Spectacular , though medium budget western , with thrills , fights , go riding , and being mostly shot at an Indian location .Cast is pretty good , it stars Tyrone Power , a fine actor who performed some classic swashbucklers, until his early death in Spain when he was shooting Salomon and Queen of Sheba by King Vidor ; However , he is miscast in a very minor stuff for his usual standards . Costars Penny Edwards as the heroíne in distress who is kidnapped by Indians , she spent several years languishing in Roy Rogers Westerns . Support cast is frankly well ,such as : Cameron Mitchell , and Stuart Randall as two Indian chiefs who are raiding Montana from their Canadian reservation , Robert Horton as a nasty hostage , Thomas Gomez as a fatty scout and uncredited Richard Boone , Earl Holliman and Michael Rennie as narrator . Colorfully and attractively cinematographed in pale but brilliant Technicolor by the professional cameraman Harry Jackson , Universal's ordinary .

The movie belongs to Canadian Mountie sub-genre including important titles as 1947 Unconquered by Cecil B DeMille , 1954 Saskatchewan by Raoul Walsh and 1961 Canadians by Burt Kennedy motion picture was regularly directed by Joseph M Newman. He was a prolific assistant director , writer and producer . As a filmmaker he realized a lot of films with no much success , and directing all kinds of genres with penchant for Western , Noir and Gangster movies such as The George Raft story , A Thunder of drums , The lawbreakers, The story of Arnold Rothstein , Tarzan the ape man , The big circus , Fort massacre , Flight to Hong Kong , Kiss of fire , Red skies of Montana , 711 Ocean drive, Vendetta , Outcasts of poker flat , Abandoned , Northwest Rangers , Don't Talk , Women in hiding, among others .

Improbably enough, Tyrone Power plays one of the first Canadian Mounties in this film. While I just couldn't picture him in this role, he was fine in the role as an interpreter sent to discuss peace with a renegade Indian tribe. The first half of the film was amazingly leisurely paced and lacked the usual level of excitement found in a Western, though the second half improved quite a bit. What I particularly liked was how the Indians were generally portrayed. Unlike earlier Westerns of the 30s and 40s, this one was much more sympathetic in its portrayal of the natives--showing them as intelligent and generally quite honorable. Also, to get past the usual dialog and accent problems, early in the film the narrator announced that Power and the Indians spoke the native language but it was translated to English for the benefit of the audience (an unusual announcement to say the least).

Aside from a nice portrayal of most of the Indian, the story also featured a cute Indian lad who actually helped the story--something cute child actors rarely do! On the negative side, the overall effort, to me, seemed rather listless in places and just didn't seem like much more than a very good time-passer. Interestingly enough, I watched this movie with my wife and she really liked it--more than I did, and this is unusual since she usually HATES Westerns.

I can only say, poor Tyrone.

You make a fortune for your studio. You ask to make Nightmare Alley. Zanuck hates it. As a reward, you're handed mostly dreck until your contract is up.

Pony Soldier from 1952 is such dreck. It is in color, and Tyrone as Canadian Mountie Duncan Macdonald looks spectacular.

It was filmed in Arizona, and he got a nice romance out of it with Helen Frye, ex-wife of the founder of TWA. You can look it up on the Internet.

Film wise, it's 1876, and MacDonald, a newcomer to the Mounties, is given a dangerous assignment. The Cree Indians, now in Montana, took two hostages for their safe return to Canada. MacDonald's mission is to free the hostages.

It's nice to look at, but that's about it. I spent the film feeling terrible for Power. Thankfully once the Fox shackles were off, he would be on the rise again. A little late, since six years after this film, he was dead.

Tyrone Power is the title character in this good western whose mission is to effect the return of the Cree tribe from the United States back to Canada in the name of the Queen. Of course, the Indians just want to hunt and return to their old way of life and to lift a few scalps along the way. Power is aided by a trail-savvy, talkative half-breed scout who provides droll comic relief along the way. The film has more dialogue than action, although white hostages held by the Indians lead to some tense moments for the Mountie. The officer's peace efforts are threatened by a band of hostile Indians, with most of the skirmishes coming at the end of the picture. The movie has a great cast of western character actors and the camera work is also very good.

Greatly enjoyed this film which had great photography in Arizona and showed in great detail the Native American dwellings and customs. Tyrone Power(Constable Duncan MacDonald),"The Eddy Duchin Story",'56, played a young Canadian Mounted Police Constable who was on a mission to rescue settlers who were captured and held hostage. Thomas Gomez,(Natayo Smith),"Key Largo",'48 gave an outstanding performance as a guide to Duncan through the Indian country and demanded great rewards for his services. Penny Edwards,(Emerald Neeley),"Two Guys from Texas",'48 was the only white woman around and was greatly abused through out the entire picture. Despite all the conflicts among the Indians and the White folks, Duncan MacDonald was able to adopt a young boy as his son with the Indian community blessings. I have seen Thomas Gomez perform in many Classic films, but I truly enjoyed his great acting abilities in this film and regret he had a very short lived career.