Oregon Passage

An usual B-western without enough attractive forces to hold in the chair, firstly having a second class casting usually on TV series, a three-side fight, between an insurgent Black Eagle against cavalry sheltered in the fort, led by a cocky careerist Major Roland who intent to get promotion to be back to east, by any means including putting all soldiers in danger against Black Eagle, in other hand a Lt. Niles a second on command has been pressure by the insane Major, among all this has a Major's wife a beauty Lola Albright a former fiancée of Niles and also including Little Deer a young Indian rescued from the Indians by Niles, this odd triangle affair is more dangerous than the angry Indians, the fabulous locations on Oregon national forest is quite sure the highlights of this average production, the spots nearby river rapids are breathtaking, l guess this picture hardly comes to light officially someday, l have it recorded from tv in low resolution, unlikely event of restoration could improve the picture a as consequence get better reputation!!!!

Resume:

First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 6

It's Oregon 1871. There is a truce except for one man, Chief Black Eagle. Lt. Niles Ord finds his group. Instead of following orders, Ord doesn't allow the killing women and children. He finds Little Deer who is being prepared to wed Black Eagle. Sylvia Dane is Maj. Roland Dane's daughter.

This is an old fashion western. The story dies whenever it gets stuck in the fort. I kept wondering where is that location. It must be some historical recreation venue. They try to do something comedic with Little Deer. Mostly, I felt it was a waste of time. There is some good outside action. It is a lot of fighting bad Indians. Some of those footage does look different. I'm guessing that there were other cameras being used there. The good old fashion action keeps this interesting.

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.

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.

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.