Oregon Passage

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.

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

Nice outdoor location cinematography is the best feature of Oregon Passage, a western shot on location, well, Oregon. John Ericson stars in this film and he's got himself an impossible mission. He wants to bring in Shoshoni chief Black Eagle alive.

Turns out to be an impossible task after martinet eastern Major Edward Platt takes command. The fact that his new bride Lola Albright has some history with Ericson doesn't help matters.

Albright is the real star here, one frontier vixen. Even the Shoshonis here say that fair haired women are to be avoided. This one sure should.

Battle scenes are nicely staged and the plot is most adult.

Will anyone be offended if I say that Edward Platt was not as good a screen actor as Henry Fonda, nor John Ericson as interesting as John Wayne? I mention these startling opinions because the first half of this movie is a remake of FORT APACHE.

I'll go further with these radical insights and assert that Paul Landres was not as good a director as John Ford. While most of the actors are at least adequate, there are some wonky lines offered that didn't sound very convincing.

After the borrowed beginning, this settles down into a standard B western in which Ericson winds up fighting H.M. Wynant, the Indian chief who leads his warriors into battle by standing on a rock and raising his arms. It's an attempt to save the B Western by some serious location shooting in Deschutes National Forest in Oregon, and the camera-work of Ellis Carter is up to the job; he chooses lighting that suggests the forests of the Hudson Valley School of painting, rather than the Frederick Remington lighting that Ford lighted for his color excursion to the Southwest. However, the rest of it is standard fare.