I finally got to see Yellowstone Kelly today and found it to be a decent enough western. Back in the day I was going to see it at the age of 12, but did not want to deal with the unbelievably long lines or the screaming teens who came to see Kookie.
This was not Edd Byrnes first feature film, but the first after his success on 77 Sunset Strip. The bobbysoxers were nuts about him back in the day and crowded out us connoisseurs of the western. I remember the long lines and the stories about how one could not hear the dialog with the adolescent females going gaga for Kookie.
The real star in the title role was another Warner Brothers TV veteran, Clint Walker. He plays a mountain man trapper and scout, the last of a breed. He's allowed to do his thing on Sioux land because he saved John Russell's life who is the chief.
After taking on Edd Byrnes as a young assistant, the two visit the Sioux where both of them catch the eye of Andra Martin who is an Arapahoe captive and Russell's personal squeeze. Another brave Ray Danton would like to replace Russell in her tepee. When she runs away and follows Walker and Byrnes to their cabin, Russell and Danton come calling with the tribe. These kind of things start wars as the Ancient Greeks would be the first to tell you.
As much as Kookie got all the publicity and was the reason for Yellowstone Kelly's box office, this film belongs to the stoic Clint Walker who if he had come along a decade earlier would have been a great cowboy hero. Walker is smart and stoic in the title role.
I have to say that Andra Martin as a blue eyed Arapahoe was most disconcerting. Just like Burt Lancaster in Apache.
Despite that Yellowstone Kelly was a well made action western that any fan of the horse opera will love.