Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

ricpantale John Lupton was a Union Captain not Confederate: I agree that no Blacks seemed odd in a story taking place in Georgia during reconstruction. Considering the movie was made in 1957, it did bring home some valid points. Bitterness and hatred exist to this very day...Black and white photography is excellent, but the film should have been made in Color. It looks too much like the hundreds of westerns that were on TV in 1957. Anyway it was a noble attempt and although it fails to arouse much excitement, it did in it's own quiet way show how the reconstructed period was very difficult. Anyway the movie should be reviewed as an interesting and erstwhile failure

dougdoepke A rather dour Reconstruction Western that's probably too earnest for its own good. Writer Hall Bartlett's heart is in the right place—reconciling North and South following the Civil War. Union Major Drango (Chandler) wants to unite rebellious Confederate town around a regime of humane occupation, despite widespread resistance. The supporting cast is familiar from about every popular TV series of the day—Stone, Phillips, Sande, Ankrum, Baer. Too bad the powerful Donald Crisp is largely wasted in a circumscribed role, and why Julie London's presence other than to build box-office appeal is unclear to me. In fact, her romantic subplot with Lupton sprawls the story without strengthening it. Also, reviewer Lorenellroy is right—Chandler's major comes across as too stiff and unappealing for a central character. His besieged Major should be serious, but the seriousness is finally carried to a deadening degree. Bartlett was interesting as a producer, especially with Navajo and Unchained. Here, however, I'm afraid he tries to do too much with a screenplay that ends up in too many talky subplots. Then too, direction should have been left to a better stylist since the core material had potential. In passing—note that no reference to slavery or appearance of a black person occurs anywhere in the movie, a rather startling omission for a film dealing with the post-Civil War South. My guess is that the producers, like others of the period, didn't want to risk dealing with a sensitive subject at a time when Jim Crow laws still prevailed below the Mason-Dixon Line. Anyway, considering the number of Westerns on TV and in theatres in 1957, it's probably not surprising that despite good intentions and a fine performance from Joanne Dru this dour little oddity has remained lost in the mix.

silverauk The director and writer of this movie, Hall Bartlett knew the far-west because he made a documentary fiction about a Navajo Indian who was brought up in a white school (Navajo 1952). You can see that this movie looks more real than other westerns. Jeff Chandler as Major Drango is an officer who understands this villagers and he has self-reproach because he sacked the village during the civil war. He did it by order but anyway he wants to make it good. The officer of the confederation, Captain Marc Banning (John Lupton) is full of lust for revenge and at the end there will be the confrontation with his own father -the past- and with Major Drango who claims a peaceful future for the people who lost the war. After each war people have to try to live together again but all wounds cannot be healed in some months. This movie is a serious attempt to show the psychological difficulties in the reconstruction of a nation after a civil war.

mrskywalker This film reveals a lot about the reconstruction era in the U. S. after the Civil War. It is amazing to see this era explained without an agenda or politically correct spins that Americans are fed now. The post Civil War era in the South shows the hardships the people faced and how one honorable Yankee military governor attempts to handle it.