Distant Drums (1951)

Gary Cooper is Capt. Quincy Wyatt, who’s every bit the buckskin clad frontiersman except that his frontier is in Florida, on the edge of the Everglades, where the Seminole are on the warpath and frustrating the hell out of the U.S. Army.

He’s come up with a daring plan. He wants to use a longboat to transport him and his squad of 40 men into the heart of Seminole territory to a fortress where the pirates who have been arming them with guns have holed up.

Lt. Tufts, commander of the longboat, thinks it’s a hair-brained scheme, but taking the fort and destroying the guns inside proves surprisingly easy. What won’t be nearly so easy is getting back to safety once the explosions at the fort alert all the Seminole that enemies are in the area.

And when Tufts’ longboat comes under fire, the trip back to safety becomes even more daunting. Because instead of a trip by water, Wyatt, his men and the prisoners they’ve rescued from the fort — including pretty Judy Beckett (Mari Aldon) will have to trek through an Everglades teaming with poisonous snakes, alligators and all sorts of other hazards, not to mention the Seminole on their trail.

Review:

The setting helps lift this film above the norm. It features a couple of well-filmed battle sequences and a few other unusual sights — like Cooper and his men finding that their lost colleagues have been dropped into a pool of alligators … and Cooper scaring a Seminole into telling the truth by threatening him with a water moccasin.

And, naturally, Cooper and the lovely captive fall for one another, though for a long time, Cooper isn’t certain it will work out. He gave up on vengeance a long time ago, though his Indian wife died at the hands of white soldiers; Judy Beckett longs for vengeance against the men in Georgia who whipped her father to death.

Also unique is the ending, featuring an underwater knife fight, though the resolution that follows is pretty far-fetched.

Directed by:
Raoul Walsh

Cast:
Gary Cooper … Capt. Quincy Wyatt
Mari Aldon … Judy Beckett
Richard Webb … Lt. Richard Tufts
Ray Teal … Pvt. Mohair
Arthur Hunnicutt … Monk
Robert Barrat … Zachard Taylor
Sidney Capo … Wyatt’s son
Larry Carper … Chief Ocala

Runtime: 101 min.

Memorable lines:

Judy Beckett, after Wyatt has shot and killed a snake about to bite Lt. Tufts: “You’re a mighty lucky man. You know what kind of snake that was? A cotton-mouth water moccasin.”
Lt. Tufts: “How would a lady like you know a thing like that, ma’am?”
Judy Beckett: “I’ve dealt with snakes before, lieutenant.”

Tufts: “We plunged deeper and deeper into the great swamp. It seemed by fleeing death at the hands of the Seminole, we were inviting just as certain death in the rotting jungle.”

Judy Beckett: “I’ve made too many plans for too long a time to die in a swamp.”