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IMDbPro

The Great Sioux Uprising

  • 1953
  • Approved
  • 1h 20m
IMDb RATING
5.5/10
390
YOUR RATING
Jeff Chandler and Faith Domergue in The Great Sioux Uprising (1953)
Classical WesternDramaWestern

During the Civil War, Southern agitators and a crooked horse dealer endanger the peace between the Union and the Wyoming Sioux.During the Civil War, Southern agitators and a crooked horse dealer endanger the peace between the Union and the Wyoming Sioux.During the Civil War, Southern agitators and a crooked horse dealer endanger the peace between the Union and the Wyoming Sioux.

  • Director
    • Lloyd Bacon
  • Writers
    • Melvin Levy
    • J. Robert Bren
    • Gladys Atwater
  • Stars
    • Jeff Chandler
    • Faith Domergue
    • Lyle Bettger
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.5/10
    390
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Lloyd Bacon
    • Writers
      • Melvin Levy
      • J. Robert Bren
      • Gladys Atwater
    • Stars
      • Jeff Chandler
      • Faith Domergue
      • Lyle Bettger
    • 15User reviews
    • 6Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos11

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    Top cast43

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    Jeff Chandler
    Jeff Chandler
    • Jonathan Westgate
    Faith Domergue
    Faith Domergue
    • Joan Britton
    Lyle Bettger
    Lyle Bettger
    • Stephen Cook
    Peter Whitney
    Peter Whitney
    • Ahab Jones
    Stacy Harris
    Stacy Harris
    • Uriah
    • (as Stacy S. Harris)
    Walter Sande
    Walter Sande
    • Joe Baird
    Stephen Chase
    Stephen Chase
    • Major McKay
    John War Eagle
    John War Eagle
    • Red Cloud
    Glenn Strange
    Glenn Strange
    • Stand Watie
    Charles Arnt
    Charles Arnt
    • Gist
    Julia Montoya
    • Heyoka
    Ray Bennett
    Ray Bennett
    • Sgt. Manners
    Dewey Drapeau
    • Teo-Ka-Ha
    Boyd 'Red' Morgan
    • Ray
    • (as Boyd Red Morgan)
    Lane Bradford
    Lane Bradford
    • Lee
    Jack Ingram
    Jack Ingram
    • Sam
    Clem Fuller
    Clem Fuller
    • Jake
    Carl Andre
    • Rancher
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Lloyd Bacon
    • Writers
      • Melvin Levy
      • J. Robert Bren
      • Gladys Atwater
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews15

    5.5390
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    Featured reviews

    6bkoganbing

    Unfair advantage

    The Great Sioux Uprising in the tradition of B westerns is a misnomer of a title. No great uprising takes place though not for Lyle Bettger's efforts to get one started.

    During the Civil War Bettger is a horse dealer and the biggest one around. He'd like to merge with another dealer, Faith Domergue and crush his other competitors. The reason he's the biggest horse dealer around is that Bettger steals his horses from the Indians and gets top dollar for them from the army. Kind of an unfair advantage don't you think?

    Enter Jeff Chandler former Union Army surgeon now a veterinarian who has given people doctoring because of a war wound and now tends to animals. He sees what Bettger is doing and tries to organize the opposition, but Bettger is a very clever villain if a little less psychotic than he usually is in films.

    There's also a Confederate general in the area looking to make his own deal with the Sioux. It all adds up to an interesting western of the Civil War era.

    There are some interesting supporting performances by friendly blacksmith Peter Whitney and from Stacy Harris a really mean psychotic sort who is Bettger's right hand man.

    For Jeff Chandler's loyal legion of fans.
    6hitchcockthelegend

    Sioux Convention.

    Directed by Lloyd Bacon and collectively written by Melvin Levy, J. Robert Bren and Gladys Atwater. Starring Jeff Chandler, Faith Domergue, Lyle Bettger, Peter Whitney and Stacy Harris.

    The grand title sadly doesn't match what is actually put on screen, since Bacon's film is more a thinker than a thugger. Plot has Chandler as an ex-Union surgeon who takes up with ranchers and Indians in fighting the good cause against Bettger's horse baron and nefarious rebel rousers.

    Undeniably the intentions and thought as per the screenplay are honourable, the anti-racist currents coupled with thematics involving the false deals laid at the Native American's doors, these are interestingly played and keep the pic from sinking below an average level. Action is in short supply, but there are moments of muscular brawn and bravado, while the Oregon locations and Technicolor photography (Maury Gertsman) provide pleasing surroundings.

    Chandler and Bettger get roles for which they were known and suited, but Domergue - radiant in that "just made love" look she had - just ends up as more token interest than the feisty intelligent business woman that the story threatens to unleash. Whitney and Harris deliver good foil as stoic friend and unscrupulous fiend respectively. While John War Eagle and Glenn Strange offer up a firm backbone in the secondary support slots.

    The story and ideas have been done far better in far more well known Westerns, thus rendering this as hardly essential. But some merit exists and for Chandler and Bettger fans it's a decent time waster. 6/10
    6ma-cortes

    Run-of-the-mill Western well starred by Jeff Chandler and plenty of thrills, struggles and Indian attacks

    During American Civil War an ex Army doctor called Jonathan Westgate : Jeff Chandler, gets to a little town where he finds a job as a veterinary. There he meets the beautiful Joan : Faith Domergue, she is a horse dealer whose boyfriend is the nasty crooked dealer Stephen Cook : Lyle Bettger. She is suppying horses to Union Army, while her colleague is planning to sell robbed horses to Confederation and Jonathan opposes his ominous activities to prevent a new Indian war. The latter is an unscrupulous horse dealing who attempts to rob herd to the Wyoming Sioux led by Red Cloud : John War Eagle. Meanwhile, a Confederate general called Stand White, a Cherokee, is attempting to join forces with Sioux Indians to face off the Union Army. As a doctor against a villain rustler, agitators, Southern rebels and the mighty Chief Red Cloud along with his scalp-hungry hordes at his command ! . For the scarlet lips of a traitor's woman, he stood alone!

    Thrilling western with frantic action, brawls , Indian assaults , and chavary charges . This is a routine Western with usual elements, including ordinary triangular romance, as starring, the good guy Jeff Chandler falls for gorgeous Faith Domergue who is also for the corrupt bad guy Lyle Bettger . There are some nice action scenes, as well as violent, thrilling fights . Stars Jeff Chandler as an unfortunate doctor who escapes from Civil War but becomes involved into a lot of problems. Chandler is well known for his deep characterization as historical Apache Chief Cochise, in Broken arrow 1950, who went on playing the role in The battle of Apache 1951 and Taza son of Cochise 1954 . He dressed military uniform in Two flags west 1950 , War arrow 1954, Pillars of the sky 1956 and he was a mine owner in The spoilers 1956 . As well as a Georgia military governor in Durango 1957 , a Basque wagon train guide in Thunder in the sun 1959, an ambitious dreamer person in The Jayhawkers 1959, a Civil War veteran in The Plunderers 1960 and his Western final as a modern sheriff in Man in the shadow 1957. Chandler is finely accompanied by the beauty Faith Domergue who at the time, the Hollywood studio attempted to launch her as Marilyn Monroe's rival. Supported by awesome secondaries such as : the always villainous Lyle Bettger, the sympathetic and strong Peter Whitney, Walter Sande, Stacy Harris, John War Eagle and Glenn Strange who played Frankenstein character in terror Universal series.

    It contains a glimmer cinematography in Technicolor by Maury Gertsman, shot on location in Portland Oregon, Pendleton Oregon, and, of course, Universal studios. As well as atmospheric and stirring musical by the uncredited Henry Mancini, Milton Rosen, Herman Stein, all of them Universal's regular. The motion picture was uneven but professionally directed by Lloyd Bacon, and it has some flaws. Bacon was a prolific craftsman who made films of all kind of genres, as Thriller, Westerns, dramas, comedy, Film Noir and outstanding in Wartime and Musical genres. As he directed movies as 42th Street, Footlight parade, Kept husbands, Devil dogs of the air, Marked woman, Boy meets girl, Oklahoma Kid, Brother orchid, Footsteps in the dark, Silver Queen, The fighting Sullivans, Action in the North Atlantic, Miss Grant takes Richmond, It happens every Spring, The Fuller brush girl, She couldn't say no, The French line , among others. Rating 5.5/10. Passable and acceptable.
    4planktonrules

    The very definition of mediocre!

    Have you ever watched a film and thought to yourself "This isn't bad....but it also isn't good, either". Well, that's the impression I had in watching "The Great Sioux Uprising".

    The story is set in the west during the Civil War. Apparently, the Union army needs horses and they've contracted with an unscrupulous dirt-bag to get them. But Stephen Cook (Lyle Bettger) doesn't seem to care where he gets them or if he starts a war with the various Indian tribes...all he wants is the money. So, it's up to a traveling doctor (Jeff Chandler) to save the day.

    The action is fair. The villain is fair. The story is fair. The treatment of the natives in the film...fair. Nothing really stands out as good nor bad. It's purely a time-passer and nothing else.
    5JoeytheBrit

    The Great Sioux Uprising review

    A crooked horse dealer threatens to spark an Indian uprising during the Civil War when he steals horses belonging to the Sioux. It's only 80 minutes long, but The Great Sioux Uprising seems to go on forever thanks to a pedestrian screenplay from no less than four writers. Jeff Chandler, one of Hollywood's blandest leading men, plays a Union doctor suffering from battle fatigue who gets wind of bad guy Lyle Bettger's plot to steal hundreds of horses belonging to the Sioux, who, a little unusually for an early '50s Western, are portrayed as victims pushed to violence by the treacherous white man. Don't hold your breath waiting for that uprising - this is a title that fails to deliver on its promise.

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    Related interests

    Gary Cooper in High Noon (1952)
    Classical Western
    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    John Wayne and Harry Carey Jr. in The Searchers (1956)
    Western

    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      Depicted in the film, Confederate Gen. Stand Watie (1806-71) was a Cherokee leader who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and commanded two regiments of the Cherokee Mounted Rifles. On 5/10/1864 he became the first Native American to be promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.
    • Connections
      Featured in Man in the Shadows - Jeff Chandler at Universal (2023)

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    FAQ1

    • World Premiere Happened When & Where?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • July 17, 1953 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Sioux Uprising
    • Filming locations
      • Portland, Oregon, USA
    • Production company
      • Universal International Pictures (UI)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross US & Canada
      • $1,350,000
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      • 1h 20m(80 min)
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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