Column South (1953)

Audie Murphy is Lt. Jed Sayre, a cavalry officer doing his best to keep the peace between the whites and the Navajo.

Years earlier, his father led a massacre of a peaceful Indian village and forced his 9-year-old son to watch the carnage. Sayre has been sympathetic to the Indians ever since.

This attitude doesn’t sit well with Capt. Whitlock, who arrives as the fort’s new commanding officer. He’s hungry for action, and skeptical of Sayre’s claims that the Navajo chief want peace.

For a while, it looks like he might be right. When a shipment of weapons turns up missing, Lt. Sayre is dispatched to the Indian village to find out whether they were the culprits.

He discovers the weapons, stashed in a nearby cave.

What he doesn’t know is that it’s all a ploy, masterminded by a cavalry general who is also a Southern sympathizer. His plan is to whip the Indians into a frenzy, helping the Confederates take over the entire southwest.

A Mississippi native, Capt. Whitlock reluctantly goes along with those plans. As a result, the fort is nearly abandoned; the Navajo take it over.

Sayre rides back to the fort with the men of the North, setting the stage for a strange finale in which the soldiers are attacking their own fort.

But what will become of Whitlock and his fellow Southerners?

Audie Murphy as Lt. Jed Sayre, finding himself under a new commander who doesn’t trust the Navajo in Column South (1953)

Joan Evans as Marcy Whitlock, coming to understand her brother’s pro-South strategy in Column South (1953)

Review:

Take an unusual plot twist involving conniving by Southern sympathizers among the cavalry out West and a final battle between the cavalry and the Indians in which the Indians control the fort, and you have a pretty interesting little Murphy Western.

Joan Evans plays Marcy Whitlock, the sister of the captain, who conveniently follows him West so Murphy will have someone to fall in love with. The early bickering between the two helps enliven things.

And, yep, that’s Dennis Weaver in the role of the Indian chief.

Six years later, Murphy and Evans would be paired again for “No Name on the Bullet” (1959).

Robert Sterling as Capt. Lee Whitlock, the new commander at Fort Union in Column South (1953)

Dennis Weaver as Menguito, the Navajo chief who strives to live in peace with the whites in Column South (1953)

Directed by:
Frederick De Cordova

Cast:
Audie Murphy … Lt. Jed Sayre
Joan Evans … Marcy Whitlock
Robert Sterling … Capt. Whitlock
Ray Collins … Brig. Gen. Stone
Dennis Weaver … Menguito
Gregg Palmer … Lt. Chalmers
Russell Johnson … Corp. Biddle
Jack Kelly … Trooper Vaness
Johnny Downs … Lt. Posick
Bob Steele … Sgt. McAfee
James Best … Primrose
Ralph Moody … Joe Copper Face
Rico Alaniz … Trooper Chavez

Runtime: 82 min.

Ray Collins as Brig. Gen. Stone, the commander trying to stir up an Indian war to help the South in Column South (1953)

Gregg Palmer as Lt. Chalmers, explaining Lt. Sayre’s attitude toward Indians to Marcy Whitlock in Column South (1953)

Memorable lines:

Capt. Whitlock: “Don’t worry about your Indians. If their hands are clean, no one will try to wash them.”
Lt. Sayre: “Yeah, but a little ambition makes people see dirt where there isn’t any.”

Marcy Whitlock, of Lt. Sayre: “He’s like a nasty little boy chasing after girls with a dead mouse. Why he dragged that awful Indian in here as if he enjoyed tormenting me.”

Lt. Sayre: “I didn’t hear you knock, miss.”
Marcy Whitlock: “You couldn’t hear anything. You were too busy wagging your tongue.”
Lt. Sayre: “It’s partly what the good Lord put it in my head for.”

Marcy Whitock: “Listen carefully. I don’t care if your friend is the most important chief in the entire West. To me, he’s just a red-skinned savage and I can’t stand the stench long enough to stay in the same room with him.”
Lt. Sayre: “That wasn’t him. You just got a whiff of your own soul. And, lady, all the perfume in the world wouldn’t cover that up.”

Bob Steele as Sgt. McAfee, one of the men serving under Lt. Sayre in Column South (1953)

Joan Evans as Marcy Whitlock, reading a secret pro-Confederate communication in Column South (1953_

Audie Murphy as Lt. Jed Sayre, trying to prevent Capt. Whitlock from jeopardizing peace with the Indians in Column South (1953)

Ray Collins as Brig. Gen. Stone finding himself under the knife of Navajo Chief Menguito (Dennis Weaver) in Column South (1953)