Incident at Phantom Hill

Incident at Phantom Hill is directed by Earl Bellamy and jointly adapted to screenplay by Frank Nugent and Ken Pettus from a story by Harry Tatelman. It stars Robert Fuller, Jocelyn Lane, Dan Duryea, Tom Simcox, Linden Chiles, Claude Akins and Noah Beery Jr. A Techniscope/Technicolor production, music is by Hans J. Salter (Joseph Gershenson supervising) and cinematography is by William Margulies.

"From a forgotten page of history, this is the story of The Phantom Hill Incident, and the events that followed..."

It's a roll call of fine Western character actors, with the square jawed Fuller leading off on alpha male duties, behind him Akins (Comanche Station), Duryea (Winchester '73) and Noah Beery Jr (Decision At Sundown) lift the standard plot formula to better heights; further enhanced by the appearance of Denver Pyle (Fort Massacre) in a deliciously vile secondary villain role.

Plot is set at the end of the Civil War and finds Captain Martin (Fuller) accepting a covert mission to locate a gold shipment that was snatched from a Union party by a rebel Confederate gang led by Joe Barlow (Duryea). During the attack, Martin's brother was killed and this drives Martin forward on his mission. With Barlow offered a pardon to lead them to the gold, Martin, a small group of men, and a "Madame" (Lane) who has been sanctimoniously ushered out of Hays City, set off to the Staked Plains looking for the hidden gold. But this is area ceded to the Commanche and outlaws stalk the land looking for ill gotten gains. Enough problems there as it is, but with water running low and the group coming apart due to differences and Barlow's scheming, it will be a small miracle if anyone makes it out alive.

A thoroughly good time to be had here for the Western fan who has a bent for traditional Oaters that feature a group dynamic creaking under the strains of a hazardous Wild West. There's some thin strains of psychological discord, but this is about good guys and bad guys, flecks of well constructed action (great punch up here) and of course the thirst for gold. The group dynamic is most interesting, with a driven leader, a borderline insane fella, a doctor, a guilt ridden soldier, a colourful Irishman, a devious "Reb" and a floozy with a point to prove. There's nothing fresh about this set-up, but old pro Bellamy stitches it together neatly and the picture never sags or loses sight of its traditional values.

Technially it's also well worth the time spent with it. It's nice to see a Techniscope production at the best of times, but bonus here is that it's filmed at Universal City and features the rarely used in Westerns locations of Joshua Tree and Lake Piru in California. Margulies doesn't quite get his colour lensing right to truly make the scenery leap out of the screen, but his "scope" photography is very pleasing. Salter's score is suitably in keeping with the tonal shifts of the narrative; in fact making the film feel more like a 50s production than a 60s one.

Cast wise Fuller turns in a lead performance of some macho substance, further begging the question on why he didn't have a more rewarding career? Duryea (was he ever bad in a film?) is restrained yet very effective as a grinning viper in the nest, while Akins, Beery and Pyle leave favourable impressions. Simcox, however, is underwritten and Chiles is just poor and suffers in comparison to those around him. Lane was always going to be up against it as the sole female character, it is a token lady role and she isn't much of an actress. But she positively sizzles with sexuality and delivers what the makers were calling for in the story. A sight for sore eyes to be sure, particularly when wearing an hour glass green dress.

The flaws are obvious, with many things defying logic during the group's time in the desert. Yet the honest will to entertain, the technical pluses, and that it still flew the flag for traditional Oaters at a time in the 60s when they were a dying breed, marks it out as being better than average for the undemanding Western fan. Nice DVD print in 16:9 now available as well. 7/10

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.

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.

Incident at Phantom Hill stars one of my favourite western heroes, namely Robert Fuller of Laramie ( my favourite TV western) and he is here, gravelly voice and all, on a mission to retrieve a shipment of gold that an ex-confederate officer Barlow ( excellently played by Duryea) stashed in the staked plains after stealing it from the union. Along for the ride, there's an assortment of characters, and they are put under trial throughout the 85 mins with Comanches, greedy men and Dan Duryea. This is an underrated western adventure that has excellent performances, great suspense and the staked plains location adds to the tension. Not a boring moment. Jocelyn Lane is a hottie. I am surprised that Mr Fuller didn't make more western movies, he is tailor made for the western hero and fights quite athletically ( well he was a stuntman)

What a picture!!! A low budget that apart Dan Duryea were almost totally made by unknown actors, the premise are really interesting, nearly shot on location with a breathtaking landscape on the desert and rocky hillsides, the plot has many holes indeed, however it was slowly mitigated on the movie, a one million gold has been transported by a convoy in charge a unit of the Union Army thru the Comanche desert, it was attacked by the Confederates at threshold of the end the civil war, the gold simply disappears without a trace, just one had survived, a confederate soldier Barlow, the Captain Matt Martin (Fuller) has a hard assignment to find out the gold with a help of a killer Joe Barlow (Dan Duryea) in exchange a pardon of the his previous crime, then enter at scene a beauty women, Memphis (Jocelyn Lane) joint on the group, in the casting has many attractive actors as Claude Akins, Linden Chiles and Noah Beery Jr., also a versatile director Earl Bellamy, even a Duryea making an overacted acting on a disgusting scoundrel, this B-movie is solid and fully enjoyable!!!

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First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD-R / Rating: 7.25