Copper Sky (1957) Poster

(1957)

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5/10
How Not to Edit a Film
LomzaLady17 May 2006
I think there is a real problem here with what could have been a real 'sleeper' - a modest, but potentially good, film. That problem is the continuity. This movie has a thrown together look, with scenes that don't match, and with dialog that is sometimes spoken as if some climax is about to happen, but never does.

I loved Jeff Morrow in this - he seems to be in a completely different (and better) picture than most of the rest of the cast. Colleen Gray is very pretty, but why is she all dolled up and coiffed in a 1950s beehive-type hairdo if she's out in the Wild West? In typical Hollywood style, no matter what befalls her, her lipstick never smears.

The actors are called upon to suffer many hardships, and one minute they are walking in the desert, and the next they are walking next to a stream near some woods, and how they got there is never accounted for. I couldn't keep track of when they had a wagon and horse, and when they didn't. Events sometimes seem to unfold backwards.

That isn't the actors fault. It's annoying, but it shouldn't detract from the performances, and the kernel of a good story that just never develops properly. It should lead the viewer to speculate about how this movie could have been a bit better. Maybe someone will remake it some day.
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6/10
B&W Western B-Movie w/ competent actors that falls just below your expectations
Bluckey219 February 2005
"Copper Sky" pulls you in and then let's you down. Even right to the end you are hoping for more insight into the characters' pasts. You want to like the two leads "Coleen Gray and Jeff Morrow," but the plot gets in the way. It has a very structured script to the point of predictability. He's lost his manhood without explanation and she can't figure out why he's the only man who doesn't want her, reminding her of her father. The fix is in. The music composition was nice, but more dialog would have had a better effect. It would have, also, looked much better filmed in color displaying the beauteous landscape of Utah where it was filmed. I still enjoyed watching it, despite it's sophomoric tone. Some characters were miss cast in the lessor rolls, I guess the budget didn't allow for studied actors in every part. Looked like some family members might have been given bit roles.
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6/10
The Oz cut was better!
JohnHowardReid15 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Copyright 1957 by Emirau Productions. Presented by Regal Films and released through 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: September 1957. U.K. release: January 1958. Australian release: around June 1958 at a guess (the actual date was not recorded). 6,940 feet. 77 minutes. Cut to 6,080 feet or 68 minutes in Australia.

SYNOPSIS: The story revolves around a prim Boston schoolteacher, who goes West to teach in a small town, and a tough U.S. Cavalryman. Miss Gray is the teacher and Mr Morrow is the whisky-drinking soldier and they are thrown together when Miss Gray finds the little town completely wiped out by Apaches. Morrow had escaped the rampaging Indians because he was in jail drunk the night of the attack. How the two face hardships together and the efforts of Miss Gray to change Morrow's character provide the drama and romance in Eric Norden's screenplay.

VIEWERS' GUIDE: The Australian censor says both versions are not suitable for children, the British Board says the full-length picture is okay for all.

COMMENT: This somewhat unusual story (reminiscent of "The African Queen") is rather slow in the telling. (We are now stuck with the full version. As usual, all copies of the Australian print seem to have disappeared). It's none too well acted either. But what makes one hanker for the Oz cut is that the opening and closing sequences are quite suspenseful. A great deal of the picture was obviously lensed on location, and these sequences are reasonably exciting too. It's the rest of the movie (to which presumably the shears were taken down under) that's pretty hard slogging.
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2/10
A wonderful actress, in the most boring western ever.
cableaddict1 January 2006
Tenpercent's review pretty much nails my view of this stinker. Yep, a very, VERY badly-written "African Queen" rip-off.

Too bad, because there are actually a few tinkling of something really good beneath all the stink. Well, basically the tinklings are all due to Coleen Gray. Good Lord, is she beautiful, and a fine actress to boot. I had never heard of her before seeing this film, and am amazed that she wasn't more famous.

Jeff Morrow is so bad in this, I'm shocked to see he still had a career afterward.

But the real culprit is whatever drug-addict wrote the screenplay. Painful.

If you have never seen Coleen Gray, it is worth watching the first 20 minutes or so (until she lets her hair down and bathes in the river.) After that, it's simply torture.
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Low Budget Western African Queen Without The Humor
louis-king9 September 2006
As has been said before, this is "The African Queen" out west. Colleen Gray does well and is far easier on the eyes than the starchy Katherine Hepburn.

If I had to put my finger on the film's weakness, it would be Jeff Morrow. He plays a drunken ex-cavalryman like a skid row alcoholic. Morrow's character is an experienced man of the west despite his drinking problem, yet when getting ready to set out across the desert, he packs 10 times more whiskey than food or water. Drinking that much alcohol in the western desert would kill him faster than the Indians.

The movie neither explores the humor of mismatched people, nor the drama of weak people rising to meet a challenge. This them was also better done in "Heaven Knows Mr. Allison" with Robert Mitchum & Deborah Kerr.

The writing is bad but I can't help feeling that a different B actor like Lee Marvin for example, could have done more with a limited script. Marvin always found the humor in the tough guy. He also know how to play drunks.

Morrow doesn't show any shame at his condition, yet he's a former cavalryman. He does show some competence once Gray disposes of his liquor.
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5/10
Color
bkoganbing13 June 2013
The first problem that Copper Sky has is that when you give a film a title of that with all the images of desert heat that the mind conjures up, color would have been essential. But this was a B western and the budget just didn't call for it.

That was a pity because this could have gotten a notch or two higher in the ratings from me. Pedestrian direction was also a problem. The obvious comparison to The African Queen has been made by many. Let's not forget that in addition to Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, The African Queen also had the services of John Huston.

Jeff Morrow plays a former cavalryman jailed for shooting an Apache because he was in the vicinity of the killing and scheduled to be hanged. But an interesting twist of fate as Morrow is locked in his cell passed out dead drunk, the entire town is massacred with him the only survivor. I'm still trying to figure out how he got out of the locked cell.

But he did whereupon he runs into new school teacher Coleen Gray, fresh from Boston and experiencing her first encounter with hostile Apaches. The two are forced together by circumstance to seek shelter and safety and to do it they have to cross the desert.

Like Hepburn and Bogey, Morrow and Gray are on screen together most of the film and they have the burden carrying it. A director like John Huston would have helped enormously.

Copper Sky is a decent enough programmer, but it had potential that was squandered.
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7/10
Unusual low-budget western with erotic sensibilities
miller-430 September 2000
From the beginning of the film, when Jeff Morrow arrives in a town where everyone is dead until the end, Copper Sky piques the interest more than a low-budget Western normally does.

There is an erotic tension between Coleen Gray's character and Jeff Morrow's which also is unusual in a film like this. At first Gray is prim and proper and later on becomes attracted to Morrow.

The killing of an Indian in the film is very different also. In most films, killing of Native Americans is treated very casually. Here, the murder is depicted realistically as Gray's character goes from initial empathy with the Indian to revulsion at the killing to understanding that it had to be done.

Unusual in all respects, the film is worth watching.
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9/10
A Complete Western
rentwist2 March 2011
A Boston school marm out West meets the sole survivor of an Indian massacre, a drunk in jail. Alcoholic former cavalryman Hack Williams is arrested for killing an Indian, something he did not do. The townspeople, fearful of Apache reprisals, plan to hang Williams in hopes of heading off an attack. But the attack comes and Hack, locked in his jail cell, is the only survivor as a massacre occurs. Into the scene of carnage arrives schoolteacher Nora Haynes. Together she and Williams must find a way to reach safety before another Indian attack. But the pair are by no means well-matched, and their trip alone across the desert is not destined to be an easy one. This is a fine Western with a very fine cast.Try it. You'll like it!
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9/10
A great movie well worth your time.
walter6712 October 2006
I thought it was a good movie. I've watched it several times and I keep noticing things I have not seen before. I know people just like Nora, played excellently by Coleen. Her facial expressions speak as loudly as the dialog. Jeff Morrow as Hack was also great casting. He knows that when he is condemned to die that it was useless to protest. Strorther Martin also added a bit of humor. I think it was courageous of Hollywood in 1957 so make a film with such an overtly religious theme. I doubt it would pass today, where everything stresses the insignigicence of life. Every time I see the movie, it becomes more and more real. A great movie.
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8/10
Lost Film
bluegull41725 April 2003
i have not seen this film for over 40 years, at least. i loved it then and long to see if my memories of it have held up over the years. the main character was sleeping off a drunk in the jail house when the indians attack and left him the sole survivor. his journey has him meet the female lead, for a person of my age there was some "mushy stuff" but there was a few scenes that were erotic and may even hold up, today. if there is any way to see this film again, i am waiting to find out.
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10/10
Excellent movie for accuracy
Rifleman446 April 2006
I would bet that most people missed that firearms which were used in the production of this picture. They were actually authentic to the period. The rifle used was a Henry, long made before the recent import of Italian copies. They had to get it out of a museum. The handguns, too, which would have been appropriate for this time were the open top conversions. This was a breath of fresh air from western shot of the 1860s', and early 1870's, where everyone has a new model Colt - 0001 manufactured in 1873 and a model 92 Winchester of like 1982 date. The truth is these weapons were not seen by the average Westerner until 10 years after they were introduced.

Watch the movie again. It is unusual for a western love story, but it does have good story line, and AT LEAST IT IS ACCURATE. Undoubtedly due to Charles Marquis Warren who produced Gunsmoke - whose weaponry was not time period accurate. Matt Dillon carried a '92 Winchester. In the last season, Festus advises a deluded gold prospector that it was 1873. Festus Haggen would not have gotten one of the first in 1873! Every Western movie collection should have a copy.
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10/10
Tears
getbutcherd24 September 2015
BTW tears can be from happiness or sadness so don't think I'm giving anything away. I have not cried from a movie in years, this one got me. some reviews here i can't believe, way too picky about technical stuff. In the beginning i knew it was slightly low budget, actors I know little about but once I saw the situation turned drastic and quite a surprise compared to any situation I've seen in westerns; I was hooked. I was not thinking of African Queen therefore I did not see it in this movie. This film stands on it's own and most westerns can easily work in black and white because they are supposed to be in the "old days." This story is fairly simple although not boring. Copper Sky is a reminder that good acting can stand up to special effects and over the top scenery any day.
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