I cannot understand some of the glowing reviews on here for this standard 50's western. The best thing about it are some stirring action scenes but it is an hour into the film before we see the first one. The army have broken a treaty and the Indians are on the warpath, understandably, but as usual, they are played by white actors in make-up. The script is lousy with a ridiculous love triangle between the stars, Jeff Chandler, Dorothy Malone and Keith Andes that goes nowhere. There is a Christian conversion theme going through this but not all of the tribes are open to this and one chief played by Michael Ansara is out for revenge. Ward Bond is the Christian missionary who does this work and rather causes the film to drag. After all, we want to see action scenes in westerns, not preaching. Lee Marvin in another early role steals most of his scenes and you have to ask, why did it take so long for producers to recognise his star quality. A lot of the supporting actors give very wooden performances and there is a really irksome situation where the Colonel, played by Willis Bouchey, is constantly out maneuvered by his first Sargent, Chandler. Only Chandler seems to know the best thing to do and you have to wonder how did the colonel ever achieve that rank in the first place as he acts clueless throughout. Three stars for some nice photography when we are not studio bound and some effective action scenes.
Review of Pillars of the Sky
