ma-cortes Mediocre and unexceptional western dealing with a tale of the early days of Canadian Mounted Police and their relationships with the Indians . Average Western has Tyrone power as the Mountie on an assignment to the US to stop rebel Indians led by Stuart Randall as Standing Bear and Cameron Mitchell as Konah and their Cree tribes from launching an all out attack . As Tyrone , accompanied by Natayo: Thomas Gómez, has to keep rescuing hostages throughout the movie , as well as battling Cameron Mitchell and help harassed settlers fight Indians .There are White captives to be rescued : Robert Horten , Penny Edwards , too , and building a thrilling final confrontation . Spectacular , though medium budget western , with thrills , fights , go riding , and being mostly shot at an Indian location .Cast is pretty good , it stars Tyrone Power , a fine actor who performed some classic swashbucklers, until his early death in Spain when he was shooting Salomon and Queen of Sheba by King Vidor ; However , he is miscast in a very minor stuff for his usual standards . Costars Penny Edwards as the heroíne in distress who is kidnapped by Indians , she spent several years languishing in Roy Rogers Westerns . Support cast is frankly well ,such as : Cameron Mitchell , and Stuart Randall as two Indian chiefs who are raiding Montana from their Canadian reservation , Robert Horton as a nasty hostage , Thomas Gomez as a fatty scout and uncredited Richard Boone , Earl Holliman and Michael Rennie as narrator . Colorfully and attractively cinematographed in pale but brilliant Technicolor by the professional cameraman Harry Jackson , Universal's ordinary . The movie belongs to Canadian Mountie sub-genre including important titles as 1947 Unconquered by Cecil B DeMille , 1954 Saskatchewan by Raoul Walsh and 1961 Canadians by Burt Kennedy motion picture was regularly directed by Joseph M Newman. He was a prolific assistant director , writer and producer . As a filmmaker he realized a lot of films with no much success , and directing all kinds of genres with penchant for Western , Noir and Gangster movies such as The George Raft story , A Thunder of drums , The lawbreakers, The story of Arnold Rothstein , Tarzan the ape man , The big circus , Fort massacre , Flight to Hong Kong , Kiss of fire , Red skies of Montana , 711 Ocean drive, Vendetta , Outcasts of poker flat , Abandoned , Northwest Rangers , Don't Talk , Women in hiding, among others .

Robert J. Maxwell It's 1876. The Cree Indians of Saskatchewan have crossed the US border to hunt buffalo. There is a clash with the US cavalry and Standing Bear leads his Cree back across the border, taking two white hostages. It's the task of Constable Tyrone Power in full RCMP panoply to located the Cree, rescue the hostages, and talk Standing Bear into returning to the reservation, where they will be provided with food and shelter. Standing Bear is a reasonable guy. But he has to contend with Cameron Mitchell as Konah, the young Turk who wants to kill all the white. Likewise, one of the white hostages, a bank robber, would love to kill all the Indians. How do you handle a minority that actually seems to enjoy the prospect of war and killing? It's a perennial problem and culture doesn't seem to count for much.It's an unusual Western in that it deals as much with the issues facing the Cree as it does with the problems facing Tyrone Power. Power is the protagonist, the principled central figure, but the milieu is that of the Cree, and they're no more stereotyped than any other group liable to be found in a typical 1950s feature film.Standing Bear is thoughtful, spiritual, democratic, and a man of his word. But the aggressive Konah is not shown as evil either, just mistaken in his values. Of course, he gets it in the end anyway. There must be a final shoot out in a Western and somebody has to die.The dialog gets a couple of things right. Duncan in Gaelic may very well mean "brown warrior." The Cree and the American Blackfeet actually were at odds with one another. And the talk of "medicine" was real enough -- and still is. I lived with the Blackfeet as an anthropologist and the medicine man has a social status at least equal to that of his Christian counterpart.At the same time, the dialog is stilted and "Indian-like". In the case of Thomas Gomez, as the comic sidekick, it sounds like Charlie Chan. And although the narration refers to the humiliation of the Cree's defeat at the hands of the Long Knives, the Plains Indians didn't really care much about victory or defeat. Like T. E. Lawrence's Arabs, they fought for a while and then went home when they were tired of it.The movie isn't filled with action, and I must say not all of it rings true. It's more suspenseful than thrilling, but the musical score hints at Canada's national anthem and the photography can be luscious. It's enlightening too. Canada is as vast as the US, had all kinds of Indians and still does. Yet it never went through the genocidal Indian Wars that America did. I wonder how come? Did we have more Konahs, on both sides?

alexandre michel liberman (tmwest) Pony Soldier is what you could call a Canadian western (about Mounties and which takes place in Canada) where what counts the most is the visual beauty. You have to remember this film was made before color TV, and when a lot of films where still made in black and white, so it was quite a thrill to watch the beautiful Canadian scenery, the red uniforms of the Mounties, also Indians impeccably dressed. The story about a Mountie's efforts to pacify the Indians, which had taken hostages, also flows easily, quite predictable, with no violent emotions to prevent you from enjoying the colors on the screen. Cameron Mitchell is so well made up as an Indian, that he is unrecognizable.

NewEnglandPat Tyrone Power is the title character in this good western whose mission is to effect the return of the Cree tribe from the United States back to Canada in the name of the Queen. Of course, the Indians just want to hunt and return to their old way of life and to lift a few scalps along the way. Power is aided by a trail-savvy, talkative half-breed scout who provides droll comic relief along the way. The film has more dialogue than action, although white hostages held by the Indians lead to some tense moments for the Mountie. The officer's peace efforts are threatened by a band of hostile Indians, with most of the skirmishes coming at the end of the picture. The movie has a great cast of western character actors and the camera work is also very good.