bkoganbing Siege At Red River is a Civil War western which casts Van Johnson and Milburn Stone as a couple of Confederate spies who steal a prototype new Gatling Gun from the Union Army and hope to get it south so that their army can get it in the field and turn the war's tide. Students of history will note that there is a scene shortly after they accomplish the heist showing that Lincoln has been safely re-elected and that was on the heels of Sherman taking Atlanta. We know if Van and Milburn don't that they're fighting a lost cause.But we can't have loose Gatling Guns around and Army Intelligence Officer Jeff Morrow is on the trail of the thieves. Johnson and Stone are a wily pair and con Union Army nurse Joanne Dru into innocently transporting the weapon with her medical supplies. But another guy who they use for aid, outlaw renegade Richard Boone has an agenda all his own and it involves the Indians.I don't think I have to go any farther, anyone who's seen enough films and knows off history knows how this will end generally. How it ends for the principal cast members you see the film for.What I liked about Siege At Red River is that Van Johnson and Milburn Stone in their guise as medicine show hucksters got to do a little snappy patter and song in the film. Johnson started out as a chorus boy on Broadway and he was brought to Hollywood after a bit part on Broadway in Too Many Girls. Occasionally he did do some singing and dancing, but not enough in my humble opinion. Peggy Maley also does a nice number in the saloon and she was great also.Maley is Richard Boone's girl and when Richard Boone is mean on the screen there ain't nobody meaner. His villains are usually quite irredeemable creatures with no decent characteristics.The final attack of the Indians and the soldiers counterattack is staged very well. Nice location cinematography for this, it was not the kind of sequence that could reasonably been done on a studio back lot any longer. Definitely a good western and I believe the only one Van Johnson ever did in his career.

johnnyboyz Siege at Red River is a good, clean, honest and highly enjoyable adventure film which happens to unfold in the old west at what appears to be somewhat of a height during the American Civil War. Throughout, there are numerous items which open up and contribute to the grubby, generally downcast nature of the film to do with shots at redemption on top of a heist sub-plot meshing in with a revenge tale neatly blending enough to make it a good crack. It's a fair old romp through some often hard material covering the pratfalls of a bunch of both male and female lowlifes cheating, stealing and charming their way through some rather inhospitable territories in aid of themselves. The film is an engaging and pleasing enough rollick, its effectiveness somewhat masked by its own simplicity and surprisingly tense overall demeanour as it rolls its leads from situation to situation with a great deal at stake looming.The film will cover that of two confederate soldiers deep into Union army, and thus enemy, territory whom pose as travelling salesmen ridding their waggon of muscle tonic and dumping such goods onto the unsuspecting locals with a catchy tune; a smirk and a wink in the process. They are charmers, operating amorally out of a front but whose presence there is much more broadly linked to that of a recently stolen, state-of-the-art Union army produced Gatling gun. Such a gun, and the catalyst of which kicks off its ambling journey around the houses, is foretold during the film's opening; a daring robbery of the train upon which this gun was being transported seeing the perpetrators initially hidden away in the mail waggon with their target granted as much secrecy as it lies hidden away from public view on account of the top Union army officials whom have denied its existence in the newspapers. The thieves, however, know about its presence and the manner in which they infiltrate the train on top of this hints at a sly professionalism very few might be able to match.It is those very salesperson's, a certain Jim Farraday played by Van Johnson and his accomplice Benjy Guderman (Stone) whom stole and are now in possession of the gun; the bedding down in a nearby town of which leads to complication that see it near impossible to get out of there without being found by the enemy whom litter the area, predominantly down to a Union army captain and his crew scouring for all of the bits and pieces which will lead them to the merchandise he's aware is around. Thank heavens, then, for the shining beacon of light that is Richard Boone's Brett Manning; a rough talking, sleazy, fist-fighting tough guy whom offers them a way out of there - then again, maybe not. Manning plays a sly and seedy customer; a womanising, gambling lout whom, it would seem, mingles around and plays guardian to a performing girl whom specialises in that of playing on-stage burlesque as he sits in the office back-stage doing what-not and probably getting a cut of her earnings to boot.The aura, or the reputation that the Gatling gun seemingly has, is highlighted by some character officials speaking of said item. The concerns raised about the gun, in that it is so advanced and so powerful, sees one official doubt that it even exists in this still feeble, pre-modern world, or if it is indeed only a rumour that such a paramount armament exists. Its presence, however, is something another man confirms is true before going on to speak of notions that it would indeed be "terrible" if it were to "fall into the wrong hands", something the film enjoys in a very basic sense of building up an off-screen MacGuffin before having the aforementioned clinical bandits make off with it – when they do, we fear the worst. Farraday and Guderman venture onwards and uncover young Nora (Dru), a nurse at a local manor house she owns whose cart is stuck in a river, Jim's somewhat displeasing attempts at getting to know her seeing him use, again, a false persona as he does with the travelling store to charm her; the bumps in the road as he transports her back seeing her invite the interaction, and despite hearing some different truths about Jim from Gunderman, she appears unperturbed and will continue on as is.The film dares us not to particularly like its leads, Farraday and Guderman; something that is indeed linked to the fact they are thieves and con-men but is more broadly linked to that of a long history of Confederate demonisation embedded within the genre of the American western. In contrast to the rather monstrous Manning, these two are fairly decent folk and it is again to the film's credit that it even attempts to go anywhere near the places it ventures toward come the finale, when ideas of redemption and men seeing the errors of their ways unfold; the film providing us with a chance to reverse prior perception and yet maintain a dramatic edge whilst weaving newfound territory naturally into the proceedings. But the film's sole joy remains observing these scuzzy lowlifes whilst in the throngs of their existence try to outsmart and manoeuvre their way out of trouble, the savage elements linked to that of the overall representation of the Native Americans uneasy in hindsight, but everything else blending well and most of it working rather expertly in the long run.

lorenellroy Jim Farady (Van Johnson)and his associate Benjy (Milburn Stone) appear to be hucksters ,travelling the West selling patent medicine (a muscle builder)but in reality they are spies for the Confederacy and are transporting a stolen Gatling Gun to the Confederate lines ,a journey that will take them through Indian Territory ,and the natives are not friendly. They attract the attention of a shrewd Pinkerton man Frank Kelso (Jeff Morrow)and are forced to smuggle the guns out concealed in a hospital wagon driven by the unsuspecting Nora Curtis (Joanne Dru)who is attracted ,somewhat against her will to Farady.they are betrayed by their ostensible escort ,Manning (Richard Boone)who has plans to sell the guns to the Indians for an attack on a nearby fort ,plans Farady sets out to foil.The movie is immaculately shot in Technicolor by Edward Cronjager and Rudolph Mate ensures the action moves along with vigour .The acting is good and the movie never flags ,even finding time for a unique drunk scene -the inebriate in question being Nora .The climax may appear familiar and if so this is unsurprising -the climactic battle is lifted from Buffalo Bill ,the Joel Macrae movie from an earlier decade ,and intercut with close up of the actors in this movieIts a solid action Western and enjoyable for lovers of the genre

Alice Liddel In 1954, a Western about the Civil War is not just about the Civil War. 'Siege at Red River' opens with the robbery of a Union train by a bunch of outlaws. The Union soldiers, including a detective, combine the Military and the Law - they are protecting a secret new super-weapon - the Gatling Gun, the first example of mechanised warfare which means surefire victory for which ever side possesses it. If we substitute the Gatling with a nuclear warhead, the Civil War with the Cold War; and if we note that the bandits make off in a red mail van, and that their leader wears a red cravat, and we assume them as commies, than the Western becomes an Allegory. This is not surprising - from its inception the genre has celebrated the UNITED States and played out and resolved its crises, while the likes of President Reagan have used it to signify a sense of genuine Americanness, so it is natural the genre should be marshalled in such a time of perceived crisis.As the film is directed by the great Rudolph Mate, former cinematographer for, among others, Carl Dreyer, one of the genuine maestros of the cinema, we might assume that if his film is a Cold War Allegory, it will be far from simplistic. The linking of Communism with disruption, criminality, secrecy and murder is not a surprise; if we do make the link, when our first shock is that the bandit leader is played by the film's star. The benefits of the star persona - wit, charm, a (relatively) rounded personality (he is a grim avenger and gun smuggler, but also a musician, orator and gentleman; he is connected with role-play and the theatre) are in contrast with the monolithic forces of law and order; while he has multiple interests besides the war, they have only that defining interest. Further, while his motives are essentially decent and right-minded, the 'good' guys are not only street-bawling thugs, but perpetrators of vile, near-genocidal acts. The film doesn't go so far as to salvage Farraday's oppositional position - the conflict between North and South is on one level displaced on gender, where it can be resolved in romance; and on another, generic level, displaced on a third enemy - the murderous amoral smuggler and the Indians - so the opposing American forces can finally reconcile. But it's not a happy reconciliation - the massacre of the Indians is only cathartic if we ignore that they too, like the Americans in the Fort, have women and children; and the finale is only happy if we accept the couple's words, and not the narrative reality, that he is an outlaw evading justice and leaving the woman he has learned to love. This fact of separation from the site of reconciliation implicitly questions that reconciliation. There are other features - the anti-realistic use of colour; the drunk scene, where the dominant male point of view suddenly switches to the drunken, gun-shooting female, linked to her frank, disruptive, transformative sexuality and contrasted with the ship-lashing, neurotic villain; the use of song, espeically 'Tapioca', and its movement from rebel code to music hall; the argument that nation is an arbitrary series of signs - the Indians shoot first at the US flag, not the army; the image of the Niagara Falls on the music hall curtains - where national identity is constructed and negotiated, not 'natural'; a sophisticated attitude to patriotism, war and friendship - that all add up to a more thoughtful Western than its routine reputation might suggest.