User Reviews

`7th Cavalry' is blah, disappointing, especially considering the cast and story. Captain Benson (Randolph Scott) returns with his fiance (Barbara Hale) to find the fort, home to the 7th Cavalry, apparently deserted. Surreptitiously entering the fort, Scott eventually finds the wife (Jennete Nolan) of one of the officers who had died the previous day at the Little Big Horn. She blames Scott for the death of her husband, since her husband had led Scott's unit into the massacre during Scott's absence. Searching further, Scott discovers a first sergeant (Jay C. Flippen) watching several prisoners (Frank Faylen, Leo V. Gordon, Denver Pyle) who had been left behind because they had been drunk on duty. Scott orders Flippen to assemble the prisoners and whip them into some kind of military shape to attend to the units returning from Little Big Horn. With just a little effort, this entire sequence could have been suspenseful. Instead, after Scott's confrontation with Nolan, I couldn't understand why Flippen didn't hear Scott or vice-versa.

The entire movie suffers from this problem. Considering the relative lack of action, the inherent dramatics of the story needed to be emphasized. Instead, the movie appears to have been shot quickly and cheaply. Hale, a strong actress (`Della Street' in `Perry Mason'), has little chemistry with Scott. Worse, many plot devices appear to be just that.

Potential Spoilers

For example, Scott is under suspicion because he cannot prove General Custer ordered him to leave his command to go pick up his fiance. Scott has an alibi but fails to reveal it, due to `pride' (as the alibi tells us). However, Scott was being questioned as to his actions by an official inquiry. He had a legal as well as moral responsibility to reveal all pertinent information, including his alibi.

Scott chooses only the drunken brigands to make up his `burial party,' knowing they will volunteer to protect themselves from humiliation and possible courts-martial for dereliction of duty prior to `Custer's Last Stand.' Certainly Scott knew at least a couple of responsible soldiers that would have gone with him as well.

Scott abandons his men in hostile Indian country to pursue a single Indian scout, when he should have sent a reliable soldier and stayed with his command.

Scott's alibi (Harry Carey Jr.), who is acting as a dispatch rider rides off with General Custer's second horse right after telling Barbara Hale he is Scott's alibi. It is not clear as to the urgency of Carey's mission, nor as to why he wouldn't quickly sign a deposition to clear Scott before pursuing another very risky dispatch.

The movie is wrapped up in a safe, indifferent manner.

Although the movie boasts a great set (the fort), fine cinematography, and a couple of good performances, it's blah, blah, blah.

TWO QUIBBLES: Although these are minor, they are good examples of the indifference with which this film is executed.

o The `prologue titles' identifies Custer as a colonel. During the first few lines of dialogue, he is correctly identified as a general. o Not once, but several times, Scott refers to his regiment as the `7th Calvary'. It is the `7th Cavalry'. Calvary is a place in the New Testament. Of course, if two US presidents can say `nucular' when the correct term is `nuclear,' I suppose Scott can be forgiven for this blunder.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE

I recently watched an `Unsolved History' episode on Custer's Last Stand. It (gasp, gasp) revealed that Custer lost, not only because of his recklessness (not to mention being vastly outnumbered), but also because the Indians had better firepower. This movie tells us that fact, and it is nearly 50 years old.

You know, if you think about it, digging up and retrieving the bodies of dead soldiers would be a pretty grisly task, wouldn't it? But the bigger question I'd have here is 'who would have buried all those dead soldiers to begin with'? Pretty quickly too I might add, since Captain Benson (Randolph Scott) and his men were going out to the battlefield a day after Custer's disastrous defeat at Little Big Horn. Oh well, so much for history.

Like many other Western movie fans on this board, I wasn't too impressed by this picture. I consider myself a Randolph Scott fan but at fifty eight years old he looked like his age was catching up with him. There was no way he would have knocked the tar out of Leo Gordon in a real life dust up, even without the age differential. If you kept a close eye on both of them during their fight, there's a brief moment when Gordon's character Vogel has a fresh looking face when only a second before and after it was sweat and dust covered.

The most interesting element in the story for me had to do with General Custer's 'spirit horse' and how it frightened the Sioux from interfering with Benson's mission. The idea was mentioned early in the story that Custer had two look alike horses, but how Crazy Horse or any of his warriors might have spent time observing what Custer was riding in the heat of battle seemed like a bit of a stretch to me. But it made for a clever gimmick.

With a relatively compact run time of seventy five minutes the movie will likely appeal to most fans of the lead actor but it's no "Ride The High Country". Keeping that in mind you'll probably do OK.

There are so many things wrong with this film. The Indian tribes that fought Custer didn't hang around after the battle. They fled because three columns, under Generals Terry, Crook, and Gibson was coming at them from three different directions. Sitting Bull had his tribe retreat into Canada while the other Indians involved went back to their respective reservations.

Also the Sioux hated Custer, they didn't respect him the way it was shown in this film. "Yellow Hair" was known to the Sioux as a rapist of their women, and a murderer of Sioux women and children. They certainly didn't bury any soldiers after the battle. After they killed Custer and the other soldiers with him, the Sioux mutilated the bodies and left them to rot in the sun. Soldiers from Terry's column buried the soldiers of Custer's command on the battlefield while Custer himself was buried at West Point Cemetery.

When Captain Benson returns to Fort Lincoln with his bride to be he is surprised to find it apparently abandoned; he climbs in and finds a handful of drunken soldiers and a woman ranting about how her husband had died because of him... it turns out this was the base of Custer's 7th Cavalry and while Benson was away a large proportion of the regiment including is CO where killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Benson had been a friend of Custer and many of the survivors believe he was able to use this friendship to avoid the battle. He can't prove this wasn't the case so is soon shunned by the other officers and given the sort of assignments that should be beneath somebody of his rank. When a presidential order comes through to go to the battle site to retrieve the bodies of the fallen officers and bury the men he volunteers and takes the bunch of misfits and drunks he found in the fort at the start of the film with him. On the way some of the men want to get rid of him; clearly he will have more than the Sioux to worry about on this mission. When they finally get to the site they fine that the Sioux have already buried the dead and set about finding Custer's grave; at this point the Sioux arrive and make it clear that no bodies are to be removed; vastly outnumbered it looks as if they are doomed...

This isn't the most action packed western I've seen by a long way; much of the film is spent with the inquiry into what happened and Benson's potential father in law who is clearly not happy with his daughter's choice of husband. When their mission gets underway there is only a little bit of action although this includes an impressive fight between Benson and a knife wielding Sioux, even the final confrontation which one might expect to be a wild shoot out is fairly tame with only one arrow shot and a deus ex machina ending that many viewers will find ridiculous... after all that one might think I didn't enjoy it but surprisingly I did; Randolph Scott did a fine job as Capt. Benson and while there wasn't much action there were some fairly tense scenes; especially the final stand off. While this never claims to be based on fact a quick reading of the real events will show few details of the aftermath of the original battle are left unchanged to suit the plot so if you want accuracy you'll be disappointed if you just want a decent story set in pleasant (inaccurate) scenery you should like it though.

Orthough this s a very entertaining film it is about as far from the truth as possible ,their seem to be a cast of thousands at the end when it comes to the Indians .

Will they never admit Custer Lost because of his incompetence and refusal to listen to his Indian scouts and his officers because he wanted to be n the limelight .

He got his whole regiment wiped out because he split his forces and thought he was invincible,he was out classed and still the Americans try to tell us it was because the Indian tribes had better weapons and other excuses .

The guys playing the Indians in this film could hardly keep a straight face .

The American film industry should be their heads in shame at pics like this that play with history .at the time it was made it was taken as cosher but now it is seem as bit of a pantomime.

The acting is good but the storyline was a mish mash of lies and indendo .

Captain Benson rides 800 miles south to Ft Supply to collect his fiancé. They then ride 800 miles back to Fort Lincoln. They could have taken the train to Bismarck 13 miles away..

The Little Bighorn Battlefield is 400 miles east of Ft Lincoln. A lot or riding. Or you can take steamboats to about 40 miles from the Little Bighorn.

After the battle the victors mutated most of the bodies except Custer. The Indian Nations then scattered leaving the survivors of the regiment on the field.

Two days after battle the seventh buried there own in hasty graves. They only had four entrenching tools. They left in a hurry with many wounded and low on ammunition.

A year later a survey was made. All the human bones found were buried.

Two years after the battle a more organized burial and a monument was built. Many of the officers were exhumed including Custer. He is buried at West Point.

Like most Scott westerns they are fun to watch. The writers rewrote the history.

Capt. Tom Benson played by Randolph Scott had fallen under disfavor with his superior officer and future father in law Col. Kellogg played by Russell Hicks because of his absence from his command at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (not depicted). Col. Custer (referenced only) just prior to the battle had given Benson a verbal order, "Benson, I want you to show the gumption to ride off to Fort Supply and bring back that girl and marry her..." of which he couldn't confirm at the military inquest. Facing the prospect of a court martial he jumped at the chance to lead a detail to recover the bodies of the officers of the 7th Cav. to show he was not a coward. Unbeknownst to him a witness, Cpl. Morrison played by Harry Carey Jr., who also had been ordered from the field prior to the massacre therefor he had survived but had been put on courier detail before the inquiry. After Benson had left the fort and was making his way to the battlefield Morrison returns bearing the good news to Benson's fiancé, Martha Kellogg played by Barbara Hale, but not reporting it to the Col. He instead rides in pursuit of Benson to give him the good news on one of two look alike horses that Custer had ridden. He ends up getting killed by a lone brave which is needed to have the horse gallop to the battlefield riderless just in time to spook some Indians who had surrounded the detail and save the day. But all seems to be forgiven back at the Fort because of Benson's completion of his mission despite the fact that he hadn't proved that a verbal order had been given. But that's Hollywood for you.

If a viewer were to sit down and watch this one as I just did, the best comparison to another film is to compare it with it's mirror image- Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise. That is because Cruise is a big star in this era much like Randolph Scott was in the era this was made. Cruise's film takes actual history and makes it boring and distorted. This movie takes a fictional story and gives it real life drama. Barbara Hale really does not get a good role/script in this movie and her actions with Scott are pretty shallow. I blame that on the writer here though this writer did better making up a story than the writer of Valkyrie did rewriting history.

Randolph Scott is excellent in this movie. It is not the typical Scott film except for the physical action fight scenes which have the usual contrived action from 1950's era film. Still for a low budget film, it is better shot and better directed than Cruise's film.

Anyone who knows history knows there is no fact to the story. Still the film tells a story. The last half of Cruises film basically has Cruise wringing his hands and mugging in front of a camera. So for once the fiction is better than reality.

In Memory Roger Ebert - 2013