Red Skies of Montana

I was a kid, when it first appeared on "Saturday Night at the Movies" in the early sixties. Sat and watched it with my sister and mom. Haven't seen it listed much since then, and certainly not recently. This and the movie "The Halls of Montezuma" made me a Richard Widmark fan. And Jeffrey Hunter was a favorite as well. Made in 1952, the year of my birth, I remember it for its vivid color and mountainous beauty. Yesterday's (June 30, 2013) announcement of the death of 19 smoke-jumpers in Arizona had me spot on with the memory of "The Red Skies of Montana"! Got the name, the stars, and year of release all correct. Now, that's an impressive movie. I highly recommend it.

This action adventure film is still another great opportunity for Richard Widmark to display his great acting talent.

In this very good film, he leads men into fighting forest fires in the Montana-Idaho areas.

When tragedy strikes, a disoriented Widmark can't remember what has transpired. The film provides a wonderful supporting performance by Jeffrey Hunter, a fellow fire-fighter, who lost his father in the blaze. A suspicious Hunter feels that Widmark ran out on his men.

The film shows what these men have to go through in fighting such dangerous fires.

Heroism is the order of the day and Widmark and company respond valiantly.

The movie essentially focuses on the documentary side :how the fire fighters worked in the fifties,how they often risked their lives (still do today)and how(sometimes) they were unjustly accused of cowardice .their relatives are not forgotten :Widmark's wife and Hunter's mom are present and are even together when they are waiting for their men to come back after a dangerous mission.

The plot concerns a fire fighter who suffers from amnesia:he does not remember what happened during a mission in which all his men were killed:a man among them was the father of a young fire fighter who cannot forgive him because he thinks he abandoned his men to save his life.Without any flashback,we do understand the whole thing during the final mission ,much to the credit of the film.

The skies of Montana are red because of forest fires and this film is about the men who jump into those fires to put them out. Red Skies Of Montana's main feature is the on location cinematography in Missoula, Montana in a national park of the smoke jumpers who go in from the air like paratroopers to contain and then extinguish forest fires.

Sad to say the film is tied to a rather pedestrian plot situation. Joe Sawyer who is a veteran smoke jumper is among many killed when they're caught in a fire that springs up and overwhelms the men of Richard Widmark's crew. Widmark is the only one who survives, he's rescued by head smoke jumper Richard Boone. Widmark is suffering burns and a bad case of amnesia as to what happened.

Of course there is an inquiry, but that does not satisfy young Jeffrey Hunter who is Sawyer's son and who believes Widmark personally culpable for Sawyer's death. That's the basis for the conflict in the film and if you're any kind of veteran film watcher you know how this will resolve itself.

But the incredible location cinematography done in color and with newsreel footage of men actually fighting the fires is the main feature of Red Skies Of Montana. Some of the best you'll ever see. I'm really surprised the Motion Picture Academy did not recognize this film for both editing and color cinematography.

To see a good film about some brave men who now include women in their ranks by all means see Red Skies Of Montana.

This film is about the smoke-jumping U. S. Forestry Service firefighters whose dangerous profession centers on the timberlands of the American Northwest. In the leading roles are Richard Widmark, Jeffrey Hunter, Richard Boone and the lovely and beautiful Constance Smith. Widmark and Boone were the studio's tough action performers of the early fifties, and handsome, blue-eyed young Hunter in 1952, as likely a prospect for glamour stardom.

A very young Charles Bronson has a uncredited bit role in this male-oriented story. This was his 5th film he had made in Hollywood and his 1st color one. Once again Bronson/Buchinsky helps decorate the mountain wilderness location with his steely-eyed macho image while rubbing shoulders with and learning the working habits of some of Hollywood"s top professionals. He apparently became good friends with Richard Boone. Bronson guest starred on Boone's Have Gun Will Travel TV series several times and Bronson also guest starred on Medic which Boone hosted. They would work together in another film 10years later in A Thunder of Drums in 1961.

Fox executives were very nervous about Red Skies of Montana, a title they felt was more suggestive of a Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Western than the very respectable action-adventure yarn this film was. In some areas , they called it Smoke Jumpers, a no-nonsense title that The New York Times actually ran its review under.