War Paint

Robert Stack plays the officer in charge of a cavalry patrol entrusted with delivering a treaty to an Indian encampment, who encounters difficulties with outside and inside influences along the way. Stack is earnest, and despite some miscasting--Charles McGraw was always more at home playing a big-city detective or syndicate killer than he was playing a cavalry sergeant as he does here, and Keith Larsen often played Indians but seldom played them well--the performances are adequate, but if there's one thing that a western cries for it's action, and there's virtually none in this film. It moves like molasses and what little action there is doesn't occur until almost the end of the picture and it's not particularly well done. Director Lesley Selander was an old hand at westerns and has done far better. He must have had an off day. No need for you to have one by watching this snoozer.

An unjustly-overlooked masterpiece. The almost-unrecognizably young Robert Stack plays the hardened CO of a company entrusted with delivering a treaty. If the chief for whom it is intended does not receive it within the week, he will declare war. Of course, complications ensue...Many of the characters and plot points seem cliched, but only because the film shows its age. Look past the vestiges of '50s moviemaking--blue-eyed squaws, etc.--for strikingly modern subject matter: divorce and Native American rage at continued injustices in particular. Tremendously taut and exciting, to boot. See this movie!

War Paint is directed by Lesley Selander and adapted to screenplay by Richard Alan Simmons and Martin Berkeley. It stars Robert Stack, Charles McGraw, Joan Taylor, Peter Graves, Keith Larsen, Robert Wilke and Walter Reed. Music is by Arthur Lange and Emil Newman, and cinematography by Gordon Avil.

A cavalry patrol trying to deliver a peace treaty to Gray Cloud are being destroyed from within by an Indian brother and sister.

Paper of lies!

Filmed out of the superb presence of Death Valley, War Paint is as solid as one of that location's rocks. The title hints at some cheapo "B" Oater, the kind that is all hooray and jingoistic as the cavalry mow down the Indians, but that is not the case. Though an air of familiarity exists, with the core of the story about an army unit literally dying out in the desert, with saboteurs operating within, there's a two sides of the coin pinch in the narrative, with dialogue nicely written with thought and sincerity. Opening with a scalping, drama and suspense is never far away, so as the group implode, with suspicions, thirst and gold fever taking a hold, the viewer is always intrigued as to who will survive and will the treaty ever reach its destination? Plus you may find yourself feeling very thirsty during the viewing...

Very nicely performed and handled with underrated tidy hands by Selander, this is well worth a look by Western fans. 7/10

"War Paint" (1953) starring Robert Stack is a good "mission across the desert" movie with good actors, an OK script, and portrays US Army deserters who murder loyal Army soldiers and try to murder their commanding officer, and almost succeed.

Very few movies portray this important military discipline problem which has happened often in US and other Army military history.

US Army officers are issued sidearms (handguns) to defend themselves against enlisted men they command who may decide to disobey orders and murder the commander who gave them orders they disobey.

During the War In Vietnam, the phenomenon of enlisted men murdering officers who commanded them was publicized and often called "fragging." Enlisted men who attack and try to murder officers, and sometimes succeed, is not new to military experience. Leading a military unit is dangerous for many reasons, not only because of enemy fire, but due to "friendly fire" from soldiers part of one's military group, which "friendly fire" is, sadly and tragically, sometimes intentional.

Murdered officers killed by their own men is not new in military history.

This "War Paint" (1953) movie set in desert country about a small military unit led by a single junior (low level) officer (a Lieutenant) played by Robert Stack shows enlisted men, about a dozen of them, made desperate by harsh no-water desert conditions, and greedy due to a gold mine they come across on their way to delivering a peace treaty to an Indian tribal chief (the mission the military group has in the "old West" of post-Civil War 19th century times in the far west desert country. (This movie was shot entirely in California's "Death Valley," located near the Nevada/ California state border, famous for it's moonscape appearance where almost nothing, plant or animal, can live, or does.) The movie story is very simple, and not a little eerie.

It was made the same year Robert Stack starred in the first 3-D movie titled "Bwana Devil," set in Africa.....another Robert Stack adventure movie.

"War Paint" is a good movie for several reasons, including it's unusual and forthright treatment of bad soldiers doing damage to good soldiers, all in the same Army and supposed to be on the "same team." A single female character is included in the cast, and she is supposed to be an Indian maiden, the daughter of the Indian tribal chief the military group seeks to present with a US Govt. peace treaty.

The girl is beautiful, dressed in a form fitting doe-skin dress, has a perfect complexion, lovely thick dark braided hair, every hair neatly in place, a very pretty face, and a great, curvy female figure, including chorus girl legs shown off when she rides horses or wrestles around on the ground when attacked by soldiers or attacking the soldiers on her own.

She is not a typical movie Indian girl...not submissive, not inarticulate, not demure. She's smart as hell in every way, and shows off her good mental qualities (which match her dazzling appearance) without apology or restraint.

Her physical beauty is a welcome visual relief for movie viewers who must watch the movie story set in the dull and ugly moonscape desert environment which oppresses the struggling soldiers for obvious reasons.

The Indian maiden does not join the military group until the movie is 2/3rds over, and then she is their hostile and unpleasant prisoner, outspokenly "anti-White man!" But we see her (the audience does) well before the actor soldiers do, and we see her comely features and great legs.

She helps her brother, who opposes the US Govt. treaty his father, the Indian tribal chief wants and supports. The brother murders American soldiers, is taken prisoner by the military group, escapes, attacks the group, and finally is killed, all while the younger adult female sister assists her brother and stays out of sight of the military group....until the last 1/3 of the movie when she shoots a straggling soldier during a rifle battle she initiates, and is caught, taken prisoner, and retained as a hostage to present to the Indian tribal chief.

Predictably, she befriends handsome Robert Stack, and at the end of the movie, only the two of them (Stack and the girl) remain....all other soldiers part of the "mission across the desert" have died.....most due to being killed by fellow soldiers.

The whole movie is unusual and thought provoking, worth seeing.

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Written by Tex Allen, SAG-AFTRA movie actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for more information about Tex Allen.

Tex Allen's email address is TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com.

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This could have been a well-made western. With Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and the line-up of supporting characters including a beautiful 'Indian' woman, the acting really wasn't half bad but someone skimped terribly on script-writing and the action scenes.

The rattlesnake scene was horrible. The snake was clearly either dead or a rubber fake, you could see the string tied around its neck that was slowly jerking it along. That was the most fake rattlesnake I've ever seen in a western. I suppose they couldn't afford a real one.

The scene where they drank at the water hole in the cave was even worse. Supposedly near-dead from thirst, all they did was shake their heads in the water and blow bubbles and make noises. Those that did draw water into their mouths spit it back out into the pool right in front of the others who were 'drinking'.

The fight scenes and deaths were the worst. I won't even go into detail about how poorly scripted and acted they were. There was clearly a skinny male stunt person taking the Indian girl's place when she wrestled the soldier. And the way the combatants who were next in line to be killed would stand up in full view to shoot in order to be shot was laughable.

I liked the overall plot and the cast, Robert Stack was good and the dialog not bad. But the director must have been so convinced that these elements would carry the film that he paid no attention to these details. I can't even rate it a 5 because of these blatant oversights.