Oregon Passage

John Erickson is Lt Niles Ord, a cavalry officer stationed at a fort nervously awaiting an attack from a marauding Indian chief, who also has to contend with tyrannical post commander Eric Platt in this ordinary b-movie from Allied Artists. It seems that the commander's new wife is a bit of a cougar who took advantage of Ord when he was a callow youth and now sees him as a way out of the godforsaken posting which she considers to be her husband's way of punishing her for being desirable to other men. Erickson makes a bland leading man and the rest of the cast - apart from a luminous Lola Allbright as the predatory femme fatale - is equally forgettable.

Googling will lead to at least two reasonable offerings of this film, though the one that I settled on had foreign subtitles and a strident musical score.

Even at the start of the film, the fort didn't appear to have a very large garrison, which was significantly depleted after a couple of unwise deployments of troops. But it did have three very attractive women, including a Native American played unconvincingly by white actress Toni Gerry. I recognised only a couple of the cast.

Towards the end there was a surprise death, an unusual strategy by the soldiers and a brutal man-to-man fight.

Oregon Passage (AKA: Rio Bravo) is directed by Paul Landres and adapted to screenplay by Jack DeWitt from the novel written by Gordon D. Shirreffs. It stars John Ericson, Lola Albright, Toni Gerry, Edward Platt, Rachel Ames and H.M. Wynant. Music is by Paul Dunlap and CinemaScope photography is by Ellis Carter.

It's somewhat surprising that given the production value here that this is a little known Cavalry & Indians Oater. Of course the absence of "A" list male stars explains its rarity a touch, but still it deserves a look if not for the formulaic plotting, then for the production strengths.

Plot finds Ericson as Lt. Niles Ord in Oregon 1871, he's 1/16th Cherokee and has a grasp of the Indian situation! Holed up at the fort with a commanding officer who has a grudge (Platt), Ord and the rest of the soldiers operate in constant threat of attack from Black Eagle and his Shoshone warrior tribe. Meanwhile tricky matters of the heart produce internal war within the fort's boundaries.

Nothing for Western fans to get too excited about but it's a very well mounted picture. Platt is a Custer character just waiting to get comeuppance, his pigheadedness and repeated locking of horns with Ericson drives the story forward. Albright and Gerry are absolutely socko gorgeous, lit up in De Luxe colour and given written parts that may be familiar, but nonetheless are performed for good impact. It often gets draggy as it spends too much time inside the fort, the character interactions at times becoming extraneous, but action pops in from time to time and is competently staged and raises the pulses. The CinemaScope photography is most pleasing, Ellis Carter (The Incredible Shrinking Man) making use of the Deschutes National Forest locations. Dunlap's musical score is by the numbers for such a Western movie, though his various incorporation's of "Red River Valley" strike an impression, whilst the design of the fort - all sharpened timber - is also striking. Worth a viewing for the Oater of mind. 6/10

I sincerely doubt any cavalry fort in the nineteenth century would have girlfriends or wives of the soldiers living there on the base. Most likely they would live in the nearest town or city, even in a different state if the territory wasn't settled. Easy chances were handed out to kill the renegade warrior Black Eagle, but refused to stretch out the running time. Lola Albright is almost unrecognizable in a heavy dress and makeup of the time period the film is set.

The plot is tired and the characters are never fully developed, but there is enough action to keep you interested. The original score by Dunlap is uplifting, and I have to think that the novel this one is based on(By Sheriffs)is a better read than movie. The brutal hand to hand combat between hero and Indian Chief at the picture's climax is a surprise. The rest is pretty much routine.