Jeff Chandler plays Lon Bennett, a wagon train guide who agrees to take a small party of Basque immigrants to California — but only because he’s already taken their money and spent it on booze and women before helping wreck the saloon where he’s been hanging out.
Once he arrives at the wagon train, his interest is piqued by pretty Gabrielle Dauphin (Susan Hayward), who’s in the middle of a rather saucy dance. Alas, he finds she’s already married to the much older Andre, leader of the wagon train.
Andre winds up being killed by a guard who follows Bennett’s advice to shoot first and ask questions later. But Gabrielle still isn’t free; Basque custom would have her marry Andre’s younger brother, Pepe.
Meanwhile, as the wagon train endures hardship after hardship, Bennett struggles to understand Basque customs, including the desire to keep a fire from the homelands burning — that leads to a prairie fire — and the need to preserve and water the fruit vines they’ve brought from France, even when traveling through a desert with precious little water.
Review:
The film certainly features one of the most unique Indians vs. immigrants battles you’re going to see in a Western as the Basque men decide to launch an attack in the mountains, then proceed to leap from one rock to another like acrobats while catching their enemy by surprise.
Of course, you’re likely to chuckle when you watch Pepe drop balls into a curved and hollowed out piece of wood and throw them, clunking a pair of Indian sentries in the noggin’ and knocking both out cold.
Otherwise, the wagon train faces the predictable obstacles — little water, dying horses, the need to dump precious cargo so the wagons are carrying less weight and the aforementioned Indian threat. There’s even a pregnant young woman who, of course, goes into labor at the worst possible time.
The Basque story-line also saddles Hayward with an accent that makes her difficult to understand at times. And good-looking Jacques Bergerac, who plays Pepe, might not get the girl here, but in real life he was married to Dorothy Malone and Ginger Rogers.
Directed by:
Russell Rouse
Cast:
Susan Hayward … Gabrielle Dauphin
Jeff Chandler … Lon Bennett
Jacques Bergerac … Pepe Dauphin
Blanche Yurka … Louise Dauphin
Carl Esmond … Andre Dauphin
Fortunio Bonanova … Fernando Cristophe
Bertrand Castelli … Edmond Duquette
Felix Locher … Danielle
Veda Ann Borg … Marie
Runtime: 81 min.
Memorable lines:
Andre: “How go the vines, Pepe?”
Pepe: “Like everyone else, they’re a bit homesick.”
Andre: “They’re young. When we plant them in California, they will forget they were born in France.”
Lon, kneeling over a dying horse in the desert: “He’s had it. This wouldn’t have happened if you gave him some of the water you poured on those vines.”
Gabrielle: “Bennett, it is no longer we who take the vines, it is the vines who take us. If they perish, the hopes and dreams of my people perish.”
Gabrielle: “They are dead because of me.”
Lon: “That’s not true.”
Gabrielle: “It’s all my fault.”
Lon: “It’s not your fault.”
Gabrielle: “And all because of these vines. Damn the vines.”
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