Incident at Phantom Hill

Incident at Phantom Hill was an awesome western movie starring Robert Fuller. Mr. Fuller is an actor that knows how to ride a horse and shoot a gun. Therefore playing the role of a cowboy comes easy for him and in turn the audience is in for a big surprise of watching this man act the role of a cowboy back in the West in the 1880's. He makes it look easy doing these cowboy things but we really know how hard it is. It is just as hard to play a cowboy as it is acting the role of Shakespeare or MacBeth in a play or movie. It is certainly is ashame that Mr Fuller did not get more movie leading roles back in the 1960's and 1970's but this movie shows us that he was and is still is a classic western hero! Thank you Mr. Fuller for keeping the western cowboy hero alive! And Five ***** Stars for Best Actor!

I just saw this on an Encore channel. The other reviews here are nice and useful. I want to make a few points.

I was hoping for a good Western. The early parts gave hope, and there were many well written lines.

The second half disappointed me with the implausible tactics against the Indians, and other implausible situations. One good example is when the hero and a few stragglers are left without guns and horses in the wastelands, and are surrounded by Indians. Their solution: create a barn fire and surround the fire with the dead white bodies. Thinking they are live whites, the Indians rush to the fire and shoot the dead bodies with arrows. Meanwhile the few live whites happened to be situated where they can jump down on and overpower (silently!) the few Indians guarding the Indian horses. The whites flee on some Indian horses and stampede away the other horses!

Everyone in the other reviews seems to be wondering why Fuller never reached anywhere near the top of his acting profession. To me it is very clear: his face and personality seemed very bland, ordinary. During the movie, it was not so easy to distinguish him from some other actors.

It's the closing days of the Civil War, and the army is mopping up the situation out west.. Among the matters to be cleared up is a million dollars in missing gold. They have cut a deal with one of the robbers: freedom in return for helping to return it. Robert Fuller gets the assignment of leading the troops out to dig it up. There are just two problems: the first is that it's buried on Indian territory, from which the army is barred. The other is the guy leading them there is Dan Duryea at his smarmiest.

Over at Paramount they were producing geezer westerns, with stars who had been popular when sound came in and were now cheap. Universal was trying to promote its TV western leads onto the big screen, and Fuller had been doing a good job for the company on Wagon Train and Laramie. He's young, he's attractive, his character is clever, but Duryea steals everything in sight, including, it looks like, gorgeous Jocelyn Lane. What is she doing on an army expedition into Indian territory? Shut up, he explained.

With Claude Akins, Paul Fix, Noah Beery Jr, and Denver Pyle.

Now thrill to TV's famed frontier fighter Robert Fuller in his first starring motion picture role . When in Southern California visit Universal City studios shows up this thrilling and nail-biting Western picture . From a forgotten page of history , this is the story of The Phantom Hill Incident, and the events that followed... Northwest Texas , at the end of the Civil War, a convoy carrying a million dollars in gold is ambushed in the desert . The U.S. Civil War occurred April 1861-April 1865, officially ending with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House ; once finished an Union army captain named Matt Martin (Robert Fuller) is assigned by a General (Paul Fix) to carry out a dangerous mission . As Matt Martin is sent on a secret assignment to retrieve the bullion with the reluctant help of one of the robbers , one man (Dan Duryea) who knows where it is hidden . Along the way they are accompanied by a motley group (Linden Chiles , Tom Simcox , Claude Akins , Noah Beery Jr) and by a Madame" (gorgeous Jocelyn Lane) who has been sanctimoniously ushered out by a sheriff from Hays City . Things go wrong when some bandits (Denver Pyle ..) set out to get the valuable stash . A million dollars in gold waits for two desperate men and a blonde wildcat !. As explosive as a bullet in the back ¡ . A woman's fury , deadlier than Apache arrows ¡ A man's gold fever hotter than the desert sun ¡

Tense , moving and suspenseful Western with a simple , standard story that engages the viewer until the last scene , dealing with a million-dollar gold shipment is hijacked and buried , while a misfit bunch is going to retrieve it , along the way they must fight off outlaws who are also after it and rampaging Comanches . The film packs thrills , psychological drama , noisy action , crossfire , twists , turns , and being enough entertaining . It's a medium budget film with comfortable actors , technicians , functional production values and pleasing results . Pretty good and pleasant traditional Western with professional direction and flawlessly acted by Robert Fuller and Dan Duryea as nasty Joe Barlow who steals the show as a treacherous villain . A Hollywood production full of interesting characters , shootouts , go riding , betrayals and Indian attacks . This ¨Incident at Phantom Hill¨not the best Western ever,...but pretty darn close . The picture is really intriguing , not merely because Earl Bellamy's tersely economic narration of his material , but because Universal Pictures made a decission to cut budget and reducing locations . This decent western is plenty of suspense as the dreaded trial approaches and the protagonist realizes he must stand alone against a heinous killer . The narration is perfectly adjusted , from the beginning , until the final showdown and being approximately developed in a moderated runtime : 88 min . Director managed to create a passable work of art with fine acting , appropriate scenarios , and attractive plot . Bursting with appealing , top-drawer characters, including adequate filmmaking and fine interpretation . The ending confrontation results to be tense , charged and riveting . This is one of a clutch of acceptable horse operas made in the sixties , many of them released in television . Here stands out a top-drawer support cast , along with the frankly excellent Dan Duryea , there appears other notorious secondaries , such as : Linden Chiles , Tom Simcox , Claude Akins , Noah Beery Jr , Paul Fix and Denver Pyle chewing up scenario playing another remarkable villainous .

It packs a colorful and brilliant cinematography in Technicolor , Techniscope by William Margulies . Being shot on location in Joshua Tree, and Lake Piru, California, and Universal studios . As well as an evocative and stirring musical score by Hans J. Salter , Universal's regular . Well produced by Harry Tatelman who also wrote the story along with the prestigious Frank S. Nugent , a Western expert who worked in John Ford's scripts , such as : Wagon Master , The searchers , She Wore a Yellow Ribbon , Fort Apache , Two Rode Together , The quiet man , The last Hurra ¡ , The Donovan reef , Mister Roberts . The motion picture was professionally directed by Earl Bellamy . Earl worked too much at TV , specializing in westerns that he shot a lot , such as : Three Guns for Texas , Seminola uprising , Backtrack , Against a Crooked Sky , Justice of the West , Speedtrap , Seven alone , The tracker , The wackiest wagon train in the West , Daniel Boone , The Viginian , Lone Ranger , The Sheriff of Cochise . He was a good professional who served in the US Navy's photographic unit in the WWII and directed more than 1600 episodes of television from known series such as : Marcus Welby , The Restless Gun , U.S. Marshal , Lassie , Bat Masterson , Shotgun Slade , The Best of the Post , US Marshal , Annie Oakley , Masquerade , Crusader , Wagon train , Soldier of fortune and catastrophe films for Irwin Allen , such as : Fire! and Flood! and a sequel titled Walking tall II . After Bellamy retired from directing he became the head of production for Universal Pictures , a cinema Company in which he made several movies like this ¨Incident at Phantom Hill¨ . Rating : 6.5/10 . Acceptable and entertaining Western . Well worth watching .

This film takes place within the closing weeks of the Civil War with a Union convoy carrying approximately $1 million in gold in West Texas. Suddenly, without warning the convoy is ambushed by Confederate forces and the wagon carrying the gold is seized. That being said, with the war having now ended the scene then shifts to a young American cavalry officer by the name of "Matt Martin" (Robert Fuller) being given instructions to take a former Confederate soldier named "Joe Barlow" (Dan Duryea) and a couple of volunteers to West Texas to find the gold and bring it back. Unfortunately, there are several problems with his mission that he will have to resolve with the first being that he cannot travel in uniform because the specific part of West Texas where the gold is hidden now belongs to the Comanche--who guard the territory very aggressively. Another problem has to do with the fact that Joe Barlow happens to be a cold-blooded outlaw who has been promised a pardon if he cooperates but cannot be trusted to fulfill his end of the bargain. So he needs to be watched very closely and at all times. And if that wasn't enough, while traveling through a nearby town they are forced to take a young woman by the name of "Memphis" (Jocelyn Lane) with them to prevent the secrecy of their mission from being exposed. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an okay Western for the most part but it had a couple of slightly unrealistic scenes which could have been presented a little better. Even so, I thought it was sufficient for the time spent and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.