I am not American, and have no right to comment on the rights and wrongs of Custer's Last Stand at the Little Big Horn River. It is I would have thought a debatable issue, and this film is watchable thanks to Roy Rowland's direction. It moves at a swift pace and there is ( despite Tiomkin's heavy handed music ) a lot going for it visually. I watched it out of curiosity but was baffled by the trivial framework of this appalling event. Ray Milland is disgraced in the Cavalry, but rejoins another division and meets the person responsible for his disgrace. Battle ensues between them, and most trivial of all is the battle over a woman who seems to have divided attentions for both Milland and his enemy/rival played by Hugh Marlowe. Helena Carter plays the role of the woman. This trio of actors are lack lustre in their performances, and in my opinion this story should have been pared to the minimum. That said audiences of the time would have enjoyed all this on the big screens and no doubt they thought they had value for money. Two men after the same woman, and both Cavalrymen and Native Americans slaughtered fed into, sadly, what audiences like - entertainment despite the gravity of the subject matter. Watchable but it is Custer and the Native Americans who count.
Review of Bugles in the Afternoon
