The Sioux have defeated Custer and his troops at the Little Bighorn, and they’ve headed across the Canadian border.
That’s a concern of the Royal Canadian mounties, who fear the Sioux might join forces with other local tribes and hit the warpath.
Mountie William Gannon (Robert Ryan) and two colleagues — Sgt. McGregor and inexperienced Constable Springer — are dispatched to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Their job: Deliver a simple message to the Sioux — they can live in peace north of the border as long as they’re peaceful.
About the same time, rancher Frank Boone (John Dehner) heads north of the border with three hired guns — Greer, Ben and Billy — determined to catch 40 horses who have strayed and might have been stolen by the Indians.
Spotting a Sioux camp, they attack, killing women and children as well as braves. The only survivor is a white woman (Teresa Stratas) kidnapped by the Indians years earlier; among the dead is her 2-year-old daughter.
Well, Gannon and his comrades quickly catch Boone and his men and set out to take them to Battleford for trial. But Boone is determined not to face punishment for killing Indians. And he still wants to recapture his 40 horses.
Meanwhile, the white woman frets about how she’ll be received once she returns to the white man’s world.
Review:
Burt Kennedy was the writer of the splendid Budd Boetticher-Randolph Scott films “Ride Lonesome” and “Comanche Station” — both involving journeys opposing factions are forced to make together — and he borrows heavily from them for this film. Unfortunately, it isn’t as successful.
Some silliness in the plot doesn’t help. One minute, Greer is proclaiming he never shot a white man who didn’t have a fair chance; the next, he’s helping Boone ambush Gannon and his men. Then, with the Mounties hopelessly pinned down, Boone and his men flee because he’s fired at the white woman for trying to warn them!?!
It doesn’t help that the white woman occasionally bursts into song, in full operatic voice. Bet you heard that around the campfire all over the north country.
All that said, Ryan, at 51, is suitably rugged in the lead role. Dehner makes for a dastardly villain. And Kennedy and company serve up an interesting — if awkwardly filmed — ending.
As for Stratas, she truly was a star of the Metropolitan Opera and this marked her film debut.
Directed by:
Burt Kennedy
Cast:
Robert Ryan … William Gannon
John Dehner … Frank Boone
Torin Thatcher … Sgt. McGregor
Burt Metcalfe … Constable Springer
John Sutton … Superintendent Walker
Jack Creley … Greer
Scott Peters … Ben
Richard Alden … Billy
Teresa Stratas … White Squaw
Michael Pate … Chief Four Horns
Runtime: 85 min.
Songs:
“This is Canada”
“Sioux Lullaby”
“The Night”
Memorable lines:
Billy: “Where was that, Ben?”
Ben: “Sonora town.”
Billy: “I was there once.”
Ben: “Once? You mean you didn’t go back?”
Billy: “What for?”
Ben: “How old are you, Billy? … Just happens there’s over 10 head of female to every male in Sonora. That’s why. … I oughta know. I’ve been through over half of them. Be there still if I hadn’t have pulled a leg muscle.”
William Gannon: “You’re a damn liar, Boone. You never gave a thought to anybody but yourself in your whole life.”
Frank Boone: “There’s no man alive who can talk to me like that.”
Gannon: “I’m alive.”
Boone: “Question is: How long, Gannon? How long?”
Greer: “I ain’t much by your standards, Mr. Boone. But I ain’t ever killed a white man with an empty gun hand in my life. And I never stood by and seen it done either.”
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