New Mexico Territory, August 1879. The few surviving members of a cavalry column, which has been relentlessly decimated by the Apaches, attempt to reach Fort Crain. On their way through a hostile land, the obsessive and ruthless Sergeant Vinson takes to the limit the battered will of the troopers under his command.
El fuerte de la matanza, Fort Massakre, Surmanpartio, De vuist van Satan, Fortul Masacru, Fort Massacre (El fuerte de la matanza), Die letzten der 2. Schwadron, Het Duivelsfort, Il forte del massacro, Mészárlás az erődnél, Fort Samobójców, 要塞大屠杀, O Forte Do Massacre
USANR
Ireland
FinlandK-16
Sweden15
Denmark
Germany12
Belgium
France12
JapanPG-12
Spain12
Spain12
Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Japan
Spain
Sweden
USA
Gunfight at Dodge City was my first taste of director Joseph M. Newman, and he seems like a half decent director from what little of his I've seen? Fort Massacre is a dark and broody Western where there his very little levity during it's runtime. It's a tale of savagery, revenge, and hatred so deep that rationality takes a backward role in favour of bloodlust. This is a Western that starts out as your ordinary men against adversity tale, but slowly descends into something much darker, with a psychological edge to it, with hatred at its core.
Joel McCrea leads the cast here as a US Cavalry sergeant forced to make tough decisions when he's left in charge of what…
Fort Massacre captures the hatred of the Apaches by an obsessed sergeant in the US Cavalry played by Joel McCrea. It blinds his judgement when he's the next in command after all the officers in his unit have been killed in an Apache attack. The men who survived the attack now must follow his orders. The chain of command has come to its weakest link and the dialog increasingly focuses on incessant questioning of McCreas's judgement by his subordinates. Between that and the Apaches, Fort Massacre becomes pretty tense and psychological. Set within beautiful vistas yet extremely dark, Fort Massacre shatters the late 50s ideal of the US Cavalry pretty compellingly.
Post The Searchers western with Joel McCrea as an indian hating Cavalry Captain leading his man to inevitable doom. Spare directed by Joseph M. Newman with a very fine script by Martin Goldsmith. McCrea is very good as is the strong supporting cast. The dread filled ending is top notch as well.
The Apaches hate us so much that they are no longer human creatures. Hate is terrible. It grows in the heart and drives out any other feelings. When a man becomes so saturated with hate the only way to destroy that hatred is a bullet hole.
When Joel McCrea, Sergeant Vinson, justifies the killing of a defenseless Indian with this line, without realizing it he is actually describing himself, and his fate.
McCrea is a despicable and at the same time compassionate figure. His family has been killed by the Indians, and while the whole cavalry troop tries to avoid the Apaches, he goes out of his way to fight them.
The subplot of soldier Travis -John Russell- who never manages to make a decision is completed in the finale when his decision drastically puts an end to this Western with strong vengeful tones.
A dark and brooding little B western. Nothing too amazing but I dug it quite a bit.
“The bullet only grazed you, Pendleton. It didn’t even hurt your feelings.”
These are some hard-ass men, bristling with mutual hostility. The dialogue has the edge of a pulp noir. A lean, mean B western about a lost patrol in hostile territory. As their sergeant marches them on, whether he’s motivated by discipline or bloodlust comes increasingly into question.
Sergeant Vinson is the archetypal soldier who’s become possessed — metaphorically — with a war daemon. Like a shark, all he knows is moving and shedding blood. He rarely sleeps, as if the grief he carries will catch up to him. Each time he confides about his past, he reveals another layer of how the tragedy distorted his humanity. He runs…
FORT MASSACRE is a western that doesn’t just give you violence for fun. It makes you think about the right and wrong of it. The value of it, counted in bodies. It’s made by a B-movie director, and only has one actor of note. If the movie has any lasting relevance, it’s because of a strong- if unsubtle- screenplay.
Watched on Amazon Prime.
Despite some weird character dynamics, this is a pretty interesting and gripping little western thriller which I just happened to catch on TCM.
In my recent western watching experience, John Russell seems to turn up in every single film, but he's usually the villain (and a damn effective one). Here he plays a more heroic and sympathetic character, and he shows himself to be a more than capable leading man, really displaying a completely different kind of screen presence.
Strangely, the top billing here goes to Joel McCrea as Vinson, the leader of this ragtag bunch of Unionist (I think?) soldiers who've had the rest of their battalion decimated by raiding Apaches and who need to find their way back…
“They keep coming. And every time they protect us, I get my wagon burned.”
A decimated column of the U.S. Cavalry, each member an amateur philosopher, roam western New Mexico trading butchery with the Apache. Proto-Cormac McCarthy.
Flat soda. Remarkably, you could take a shot every time there's a line of dialogue that isn't on the nose and remain sober. Joel McCrea soldiers through the cynical and ugly plot, lending as much conviction as possible to the film's soliloquizing about vengeance and the burden of command. I'm sure the film must have been a shock at the time for how it subverted his star image--it's just a shame that the conservative star finally decided to take such a risk in a film this turgid and preachy. A Fort Apache-esque final speech doesn't lend it the complexity that the film seems to think it does, sadly. A swing and a miss.
Unsparing, grim and violent tale of twisted morality led by a rock of hatred superbly played Joel McCrea, showing he could play a dramatically complex role just as well as could do comedies and romance. His calvary sergeant wants to kill most Apaches who cross his path, out of revenge for the death of his family at Apache hands. He is left in charge of what is left of C Troop after an Apache raid. They hate his unrelentingly savage and reckless tactics, but they fear the Apaches more than they fear him. However, the question of whether they should follow him blindly or not is one the film’s main themes. Superbly directed in CinemaScope by Joseph H. Newman, with a succinct and thoughtful script by Martin Goldsmith, this a Western well worth seeking out.
A great storytelling convention in old Westerns featuring native Americans was framing the Native Americans as monsters that lurk in the wild threatening the heroes like villains in horror movies. I mean great in the sense that, it makes for fun movies but obviously fucked up because of the stereotypes it perpetuates and the ahistorical perspective on who was the aggressor between the whites moving out West and the Native Americans whose land was being taken while they were being massacred. John Ford was obviously the best director whose work was mired in this disgusting shit but then in 56 he made maybe the best Western ever which suggested that maybe actually the monsters had a reason to kill the…
